portmaster deletes failed ports

[Hans Lambermont]

Doug Barton wrote:

>>>> RW wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>>> There an option to create backup packages, but nothing to
>>>>> automatically restore the previous version if the install fails. 
...
> I'm starting to think that the way to handle this would be to have the
> backup option be on by default, and document the process for
> recovering from a failed install thoroughly in the man page. Then if
> that happens, I can print a message that refers the user to the man
> page for recovery details.

I'd like to see software upgrade tools *being able to* complete their
job unattended. I might not use it that way myself (at least from day
1), but it should be able to. From this viewpoint the software upgrade
tool should never exit while leaving the system known to be broken
(namely incomplete). The auto-restore-backup is a sane default small
part to reach this goal. It prevents users to shoot themselves in the
foot by not carefully reading the output of the software upgrade tool
when it left the system with 1 port less than when it started.

The current 'backup option' can even be maintained by allowing
portmaster to actually remove the backup when the upgrade installed
successfully. This way portmaster can always restore the backup when
needed.

I'm willing to add this functionality to portmaster, if Doug will accept
it of course ;-) .
Is someone else already working on this ? if so please let me know.

regards,
  Hans Lambermont