Not sure if your aware of gentoolkit, which has this nice little feature called "etc-update"
which does exactly that =)

trance
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe McMahon" <mcmahon@...>
To: "Mark Guertin" <gerk@g.o>
Cc: <gentooppc-dev@g.o>; <gentooppc-user@g.o>
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 12:58 PM
Subject: [gentooppc-dev] Dealing with updated config files


> I've been finding that dealing with the updated config files can be a real 
> pain in the neck; here's a Perl scrpt to simplify it some. (Requests for
> features entertained. If people really like this, I'll make an ebuild out
> of it.)
> 
> #!/usr/bin/perl -w
> 
> =head1 NAME
> 
> cfgdiff - show/manage updated config files on Gentoo Linux
> 
> =head1 SYNOPSYS
> 
>   # List all the files that currently have ._config
>   # files waiting to be checked:
>   cfgdiff
> 
>   # Show the diffs for a particular file:
>   cfgdiff /etc/make.conf
> 
>   # Accept the new file, replacing the old:
>   cfgdiff /etc/make.conf accept
> 
>   # Reject the new file, keeping the old:
>   cfgdiff /etc/make.conf reject
> 
> =head1 USAGE
> 
> C<cfgdiff> is suitable for helping you compare new versions of config 
> files
> to old ones on Gentoo Linux. 
> 
> C<emerge> creates files containing C<._cfg000> when it wants to allow you 
> to 
> check these files before putting them into your running system. Normally,
> you have to use C<find> (if you can remember the proper syntax) to find 
> these
> files, and then type in the C<diff>, C<rm>, or C<mv> commands yourself to 
> update these files as you deem appropriate.
> 
> C<cfgdiff> makes all this much easier. You can get the list with one 
> command, 
> and then easily accept the new files (moving the new file over the old), 
> reject the new files (simply removing them), or edit the config file in 
> question.
> 
> Typically, you'll do some installs, and C<emerge> will warn you that you 
> have
> a dozen or so config files to check and possibly update. Use C<cfgdiff> to
> see them:
> 
>   $ cfgdiff 
>   0 /etc/make.conf
>   1 /etc/ ...
> 
>   $
> 
> You can then check on any indiividual file:
> 
>   $ cfgdiff /etc/make.conf
>   (diff output follows)
>   $
> 
> If you like the changes, accept them:
> 
>   $ cfgdiff /etc/make.conf accept
>   $
> 
> Or reject them:
> 
>   $ cfgdiff /etc/make.conf reject
> 
> Maybe you want to edit the file before or after:
> 
>   $ cfgdiff /etc/make.conf edit
> 
> =head Why the numbers?
> 
> If you are extremely lazy, you can simply enter the number of the file you
> want to process and have C<cfgdiff> handle it:
> 
>   $ cfgdiff 
>   0 /etc/something_log_and_hard_to_type
>   $ cfgdiff 0 
>   (diff output follows)
>   $ cfgdiff 0 accept
> 
> =over 4
> 
> B<Be careful!> If you C<accept> or C<reject> a file, the file numbers
> I<change>! Always rerun C<cfgdiff> to re-list the files if you're not
> sure about the number, or just type the name (safest).
> 
> =back
> 
> =head1 AUTHOR
> 
> Joe McMahon (mcmahon@...)
> Copyright 2002 by Joe McMahon.
> 
> =head1 LICENSE
> This software is licensed under the same terms as Perl itself.
> 
> =cut
> 
> use strict;
> 
> my $file = shift;
> my $action = shift;
> my ($dir, $tail, $new, @names, @filenumber, %filemap);
> 
> # This subroutine finds all of the files that have updates
> # and calls a callback routine for each (oldname, newname) pair.
> sub fileaction {
>   my $callback = shift;
>   my @names = `find /etc -iname '._cfg????_*'` unless @names;
>   foreach (@names) {
>      chomp;
>      my $newfile = $_;
>      s/._cfg.{4}_//;
>      my $oldfile = $_;
>      $callback->($oldfile, $newfile);  
>   }
> }
> 
> unless (defined $file) {
>   # print all the files with an associated number.
>   my $fileno;
>   fileaction( sub { print sprintf("%4d",$fileno++)," ",$_[0],"\n"} );
> }
> else {
>   # A file argument was supplied, either a name or a number.
>   if (my($file_to_use) = ($file =~ /^(\d+)$/)) {
>     # "backreference" to a file by number in the list.
>     fileaction( sub { @filenumber = $_[0]; $filemap{$_[0]} = $_[1]; } );
>     $file = $filenumber[$file_to_use];
>     die "File $file_to_use doesn't exist\n" unless defined $file;
>   }
> 
>   # Get the config file corresponding to this one.
>   $new = $filemap{$file};
> 
>   unless (defined $action) {
>     # No action, run a diff.
>     die "No emerged config file $new\n" unless -e $new;
>     system "/usr/bin/diff", $file, $new;
>   }
>   elsif ($action =~ /accept/) {
>     # Accept the new file as-is, replacing the old one.
>     system "mv $new $file";
>   }
>   elsif ($action =~ /reject/) {
>     # Discard the new one, leave the old one unchanged.
>     unlink $new;
>   }
>   elsif ($action =~ /edit/) {
>     # Edit the file.
>     exec "vi $file";
>   }
> }
> 
> Enjoy. 
> 
>  --- Joe M.
> 
> 
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