sce-update has been under revision, so just food for thought or maybe future feature. Running sce-update is CPU intensive and time consuming, especially on old hardware, anticipate longish even on newer system. Takes ~10 minutes with 100% processor use to systematically check 14 SCEs for updates, 6 of which are dCore pre-built that rarely change...even if the DEBINX hasn't changed.
To help with testing got into habit of backing up old DEBINX files, running diff against new versions to anticipate update flags. If this feature was built-in, a quick preliminary update check could take seconds not minutes.
When a user runs sce-update, why not archive the old DEBINX (eg. debian_jessie_main_i386_Packages.old), new DEBINX downloaded, run diff, depending on outcome:
1. Neither main or security package indexes have changed since last sce-update, SCE updates unlikely, quit or perform thorough check anyway?
2. Both the main and security package indexes have changed since last sce-update, perform thorough check?
2. The main package index has changed since last sce-update, SCE updates undetermined, perform thorough check?
3. The security package index has changed since last sce-update, security updates may be pending, perform thorough check?
Of course the non-interactive option would not pause for this. Running sce-import should also not automatically backup DEBINX, just when sce-update is run. If the user inadvertently deleted the archived DEBINX.old file(s), then sce-update would just backup the new and run through. Total backed up DEBINX files only ~10mb, potentially lots of time and CPU cycles saved checking updates.
My logic may be flawed or require revision. Maybe the DEBINX files change so frequently that adding such a feature is just a waste of time and effort. Just a thought, thanks.