UPDATING 20130904 entry issues

[Anton Shterenlikht]

ports/UPDATING from 20130904 has:

  # pkg query %ro libiconv >ports_to_update
  # pkg delete -f libiconv
  # cat ports_to_update | xargs portmaster

So I have to delete a port on which >250 other
installed ports depend. After that I have *many*
unusable ports until the portmaster completes
the rebuilding, which, on my boxes, means days.

In addition, my experience, at least on ia64, sparc64
and amd64 is that such large updates never go smoothly.

So, is it possible to reverse the procedure, and
update all ports which depend on libiconv before
deleting it? I'm thinking about the recommended
procedure for using "make delete-old-libs" for the
base OS. There new port builds automatically pick
the newever version of the shared lib. When the old
version is no longer used by any ports it can be
removed.

Is it not possible to tell ports to first check
for libiconv in base, and if it is not there,
then install/use one from ports?

Anton