[pacman-dev] Mark outdated packages automatically (aka Livecheck)

[Lukas Fleischer]

On Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 11:12:05AM -0700, Anatol Pomozov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I believe in automatization. Any routine work that can be done
> automatically should be done this way.
> 
> One such thing that can be improved in Arch project is discovering
> out-of-date packages. Currently it is done by users who go to
> https://www.archlinux.org/packages/ find the package and then click
> "Flag Package Out-of-Date" link. Why to bother users? Why not to let
> some bot to visit websites and check for new versions?
> 
> There are examples of package managers that have such functionality -
> macports http://guide.macports.org/chunked/reference.livecheck.html
> Their Portfiles can have information about how to find released files
> (using regexp). Then periodically (e.g. daily) a bot visits webpages,
> parses html and checks if new files are present.
> 
> Is it possible to have such functionality in pacman? It would save
> users time and make package update time lower.

Some developers and Trusted Users already use tools to check websites
for updates. I agree that it might be better to do this in a central
location but this is certainly not a pacman issue. Maybe we could add
something to archweb (or just use a bot, as you already mentioned).