i forgot to include this message in my last reply, so bear w/ me... on Jul 16 11:29, i got this from Andreas... > On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 07:10:17PM -0400, parv wrote: > > ...in the end both will do the same thing: remove/delete all the > > installed software as listed in /var/db/pkg. if you go the 'pkg_info' > > route, you should add '-f' and or '-d' flag. > > > > if pkg_delete/xargs/shell complain that 'pipe broken', 'too many > > arguments', or some such, then you can try this... > > > > # find /var/db/pkg -type d -execdir pkg_delete -fd {} \; > > This forks a pkg_delete command for every port found, thats expensive. > Why not use find/xargs combination in this case as well ? > > ( cd /var/db/pkg; find . -type d | xargs pkg_delete ) > > Andreas /// > to give everybody else the right context, my last message was a reply to abe, omitted from the above andreas' quoted message... on Jul 12 18:48, i got this from abram... > I have updated the ports using cvsup. So, this: > > cd /var/db/pkg && pkg_delete -fd * > > will remove all the packages and ports that are > installed? > > I really want to understand what I'm doing here ;-) > > Another person suggested I do: > > pkg_info | cut -d\ -f1 | xargs pkg_delete > > what is the difference between what these two commands > will do? > > Abe andreas, your 'find+xargs' script is basically same as 'pkg_info+cut+xargs', as quoted by abe above, as far as 'xargs' is concerned. so the 'too many arguments' problem is still exists. thus was the reason of using 'find ... -execdir ...'; i suppose i should have noted the expense instead of intentionally omitting it. -- so, do you like word games or scrabble? - parv To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message