Documenting software-updates semi-automatically in MacOS X by parsing log files?

Posted by Martin on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Martin
Published on 2012-11-25T09:55:01Z Indexed on 2012/11/25 11:08 UTC
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Filed under:

osx

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updates

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logging

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shell-script

I'd like to document changes I made to my computer (running MacOS 10.6.8) to be able to identify the sources of eventual problems. Mostly I install updates when a software notifies me about a newer version and offers me a dialog to download and install the update.

Currently I'm documenting those updates "by hand" by noting in a text file, when I have e. g. installed a Flash-Player update or updated another 3rd party software ...

I wonder if I could achieve that easier and semi-automatically by parsing system logfiles for certain texts like "install" and that way directly get the relevant information:

what has been installed (Software and version)
when has been installed
where has it been installed/what has changed

Is there a way to extract such information by a script from the existing logfiles?

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