I wanted a newer version of Git because there was a new feature that I wanted to use. Since I use MacPorts (FreeBSD-like package manager) to manage most of my command line apps I quickly opened a terminal and ran sudo port outdated which returned a “No installed ports are outdated.” message. I remembered that there was an alternative package manager called Fink (Debian-like package manager) so I opened their site and checked to see that their version of Git was 1.7.0.2-101 (my current with MacPorts was 1.6.5.7).
As I started downloading Fink I decided to head over to MacPorts and check out on their site what version of Git was available. Thier website curiously reported version 1.7.0.2. Just to make sure I didn’t fat finger anything I switched over to my terminal window and once again sudo port outdate which again reported 1.6.5.7. As I scratched my head trying to figure out what was going on I checked my version of MacPorts which reported 1.8.1 and that 1.8.2 was available.
Since there was an upgrade available I ran a sudo port selfupdate. After updating I once again ran sudo port outdated which now miraculously reported that many of my packages had updates available. As I sit here waiting for all my outdated packages to update I decided to post this in the hope that it might help someone else who runs into a similar situation.
Moral of the story, keep MacPorts updated no matter how small the revision difference is. In fact just to be safe from now on I’ll be running sudo port selfupdate && sudo port upgrade outdated and suggest you do too.
