Hi,

I recently started working on a small gentoo utility named "euscan"
(for Ebuild Upstream Scan)
For those who don't know debian's uscan, it allows to scan upstream
for new versions. It's used by packages.qa.debian.org (example:
http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/php-net-ipv4.html ).
It's available at: http://xf.iksaif.net/bordel/euscan

Currently, it uses two heuristics to find new versions, both based on
SRC_URI and PV:
- Directory scanning: scan directories to find files with newer version
- Brute Force: generate new possible versions, and try to download files

Note that it also works when only a part of the version is available
in the url.

I think that it would be great to have these informations on
http://packages.gentoo.org/ and/or unofficial
http://gentoo-portage.com/ website.

We could also add the ability to browse packages by maintainer to help
them see if they have any outdated package.

I started this mostly to see if it was possible, and I don't know if
i'll have the time to continue to work on that project, but I think
gentoo really needs an automated way to detect outdated packages.
This could also be a 2011 GSOC project (finishing euscan, and adding a
web based interface to browse the results).

Examples:

$ ./euscan PEAR-Validate-0.8.3
Package: dev-php/PEAR-Validate-0.8.3
Herd: php
Maintainer: none
Location: /usr/portage/dev-php/PEAR-Validate
 * Scanning: http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-${PV}.tgz
 * Scanning: http://pear.php.net/get
 * Generating version from 0.8.3
 * Brute forcing: http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-${PV}.tgz
 * Trying: http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-0.8.4.tgz ...               [ ok ]
 * Trying: http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-0.8.5.tgz ...               [ !! ]
 * Trying: http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-0.9.0.tgz ...               [ !! ]
 * Trying: http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-0.10.0.tgz ...              [ !! ]
 * Trying: http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-0.8.6.tgz ...               [ !! ]
New Upstream Version: 0.8.4 http://pear.php.net/get/Validate-0.8.4.tgz

$ ./euscan icu4j-4.4.2
Package: dev-java/icu4j-4.4.2
Herd: java
Maintainer: none
Location: /usr/portage/dev-java/icu4j
 * Scanning: http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j/${PV}/icu4j-4_4_2-src.jar
 * Scanning: http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j
New Upstream Version: 4.5.1 http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j/4.5.1/
New Upstream Version: 4.5.2 http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j/4.5.2/
New Upstream Version: 4.6 http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j/4.6/
New Upstream Version: 4.6rc2 http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j/4.6rc2/
New Upstream Version: 4.7.1 http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j/4.7.1/
New Upstream Version: 4.6.1 http://download.icu-project.org/files/icu4j/4.6.1/

$ ./euscan IceE-1.3.0-r1
Package: dev-cpp/IceE-1.3.0-r1
Herd: no-herd
Maintainer: maintainer-needed@g.o
Description: The Internet Communications Engine (Ice) is a modern
object-oriented middleware with support for C++, .NET, Java, Python,
Ruby, and PHP
Location: /usr/portage/dev-cpp/IceE
 * Scanning: http://www.zeroc.com/download/IceE/${0}.${1}//IceE-${PV}-linux.tar.gz
 * Scanning: http://www.zeroc.com/download/IceE
 * Generating version from 1.3.0
 * Brute forcing:
http://www.zeroc.com/download/IceE/${0}.${1}//IceE-${PV}-linux.tar.gz
 * Trying: http://www.zeroc.com/download/IceE/1.3//IceE-1.3.1-linux.tar.gz
...      [ !! ]
 * Trying: http://www.zeroc.com/download/IceE/1.3//IceE-1.3.2-linux.tar.gz
...      [ !! ]
 * Trying: http://www.zeroc.com/download/IceE/1.4//IceE-1.4.0-linux.tar.gz
...      [ !! ]
 * Trying: http://www.zeroc.com/download/IceE/1.5//IceE-1.5.0-linux.tar.gz
...      [ !! ]

Thanks,
-- 
Corentin Chary
http://xf.iksaif.net