upgrading ports with a lot of dependencies

[Kevin Oberman]

On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 3:52 PM, Matthias Andree <matthias.andree at gmx.de> wrote:
> Am 26.08.2012 07:40, schrieb Jim Pazarena:
>> My question is a general one, with the following specific example.
>>
>> I wanted to re-compile the latest phpmyadmin
>> but when I tried that, I get a "you must have the latest php5" (5.4.6)
>>
>> when I try php5
>> I get a dependency of devel/pkgconf
>>
>> when I compile pkgconf, it conflicts with devel/pkg-config
>>
>> Upon investigation it looks like pkg-config is replaced with pkgconf
>> however attempting to remove it show dozens of dependencies preventing
>> the removal.
>>
>> I find this series of challenges frequently as installs move along
>> in age, and usually wind up re-loading the entire server to beat the
>> challenge.
>>
>> There must be an easier way. Advice would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Beyond what Matthew stated, use an upgrade tool, and do not do upgrades
> manually.  I found that (a) using portmaster, while at the same time (b)
> watching /usr/ports/UPGRADING has given me smooth upgrades.
>
> portmaster sorts out the "if a requisite port was upgraded, rebuild it
> first" and the dependency management hassles.
>
> There are other tools that I have less experience with.  I stopped using
> portupgrade a while ago, but now that it has got a new active
> maintainer, chances are that a new attempt is worthwhile.

And, as I mention rather often, pkg-libchk from
sysutils/bsdadminscripts can save you from rebuilding a LOT of ports.
pkg_libchk -o | grep LIBNAME | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq > dep-ports
(where LIBNAM is the sharable (.so) installed by the port in question)
portmaster -D `cat dep-ports`
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
E-mail: kob6558 at gmail.com