Forcing port reinstalls without rebuilding over and over again

[Paul Schmehl]

--On December 12, 2018 at 11:49:00 AM -0700 Gary Aitken 
<freebsd at dreamchaser.org> wrote:

> On 12/12/18 1:07 AM, Paul Schmehl wrote:
>> Is there a way, using portmaster, to force the rebuild of all ports
>> without rebuilding the same ports over and over and over again?
>>
>> I've noticed that using portmaster -f forces the rebuild of every
>> dependency. I think I've now rebuild perl and python at least 20 or
>> 30 times. Once should be enough. I guess if you're going to rebuild
>> everything, it would be ok to ignore dependencies for ports, since
>> they're all going to be rebuilt anyway.
>>
>> What's the magic potion for that?
>
> If I understand the question, use the -R option.
> I typically rebuild ports using:
>    portmaster --no-term-title -R categoryA/portA categoryB/portB
>
> I have not tried using -af, but I'm guessing the effect would be what you
> want.
>

The recommendation in the Handbook for updating over major versions using 
freebsd-update is to update all ports and then run freebsd-update install 
one last time.

I tried portmaster -Rafd, but I'm still seeing perl and python being 
rebuilt repeatedly, and with some ports, a long list of dependencies are 
being built. It sure seems the -R option should do the trick, especially 
because the man page specifically states that, but it doesn't seem to be 
working that way.

"-R  used with the -r or -f options to skip ports updated on a previous 
run. When used with -r it will also prevent the rebuild of the parent port 
if it, and all of its dependencies are up to date."

Paul Schmehl, Retired
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
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