Portsnap Update Question

[Chris]

I would like to verify whether my active installed ports are updated  
when I run the portsnap fetch update. I've read the handbook and man  
but I don't get a comfortable feeling that the question is answered  
in definitive terms that have meaning to me.

I'm preparing to apply all the recent updates to the production  
servers I have on 6.1 R P6 tomorrow morning and want to make certain  
I fully update the servers with the window of I have. I'll cvsup,  
build and install world and kernel through the normal process. What  
I've been doing is then running portsnap fetch update to apply  
patches to the ports. In doing so, I've not seen recompilations take  
place and remained somewhat fuzzy as to whether I was merely  
retrieving snapshots of source for whatever is in /usr/ports or if in  
addition, somehow binary changes were being applied to programs I've  
already installed (e.g., I have mysql and rsync installed from ports  
on every machine, would they be updated). Perhaps I should be  
remaking them?

Is the process I described, not updating the binaries of installed  
ports? I could have answered this had I compared /usr/local/bin  
before and after, but I have no example systems to play with at the  
moment. I note that portupgrade is far more involved but clearly does  
this.