Ken Causey wrote:
> I'm not certain if we are talking about the same thing here.  I'm
> thinking of an analog to
> 
> Utilities class>>updateFromServerThroughUpdateNumber:
> 
> and this would be done from the user side as desired.
> 
> I think I still don't quite understand MC configurations because the
> model in my mind was simply that the .mcm specified packages and not
> specific versions and that when you updated it updated all listed
> packages to the latest versions in the repository.  However I just
> looked at the latest update-ar.4.mcm and it does indeed specify
> versions.  So that confuses me why we don't have to modify the .mcm
> every time a new version is published.

That's because the updater does what you describe, but only for the 
*latest* update.mcm. The updater first loads all the specific versions 
that are in the list of update.mcm. With the *latest* update.mcm it then 
simply updates all packages to the latest version. For example:

updates.1.mcm:
   Kernel-aa.1.mcz
   Collections-bb.3.mcz

updates.2.mcm:
   Collections-aa-5.mcz
   Kernel-bb.7.mcz

updates.3.mcm
   Kernel-aa.15.mcz
   Collections-bb.7.mcz

First, the updater loads what is listed in updates.1.mcm 
(Kernel-aa.1.mcz, Collections-bb.3.mcz), then it goes on to 
updates.2.mcm (Collections-aa.5.mcz, Kernel-bb.7.mcz) then updates.3.mcm 
(Kernel-aa.15.mcz, Collections-bb.7.mcz).

Once it has loaded all these versions it takes updates.3.mcm and checks 
whether there are any new versions of Kernel or Collections. If there 
are, it loads (in the order that is given in updates.3.mcm; Kernel 
first, then Collections).

> Perhaps a way to do what I want could involve specifying a local
> override to specific entries in the the mcm to only update to a certain
> version of a package or perhaps not even load a package at all.

It would be easy to support updating through a particular update.mcm 
only. It would be harder to update through a specific package version 
automatically but one could update to an earlier update.mcm and load the 
remaining packages manually.

Cheers,
   - Andreas