Hey there, I've been thinking about libalpm recently since I started maintaining aurbuild. I haven't looked at any of the code of libalpm (yet). Yes, I have heard about how it's ugly and so on. I've seen all the stalled attempts at creating python bindings as well. I contacted one of those projects:
The thing that has to be done before thinking of using pyalpm is implementing the transaction system from libalpm. It'll be a real pain because, until the last time I've checked it, it was made in a "flag-return_value-more_flag" way, which make it very hard to wrap for python (at least using pyrex, as I was). So good luck if you'll try
Well I'm still determined to try just to let you know. I'm willing to provide input and get involved with libalpm eventually. It could be useful for some other archlinux projects too like repoman and pacbuild. And who knows, maybe even a sleek new python based, command-line oriented AUR. I'm stretching, but this is a wacky idea of mine. There was some casual talk among some AUR hackers about hooking into libalpm back in October or something. On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:33:18 -0500 "Dan McGee" <dpmcgee@gmail.com> wrote:
It is clear to us on the list that no one has really latched on to using libalpm. There could be all kinds of different reasons for this, but it's mostly important that libalpm should work for pacman
So, what does this lead us to? 1. Document the existing interface better. Definitely
2. Frontend developers need to speak up and get ideas on this list. Here I am. Though my input will be largely dependent on how my other work progresses. There's only 24 hours in a day unfortunately.
3. Scrap the whole libalpm/split idea. I guess that would depend on the purpose libalpm was created in the first place. If you could ever envision more than one application using the libraries at the same time I would vote to keep libalpm. I can imagine a setup where I have a software checking the database, building, and installing packages in a syncronised manner.
4. Switch to something like python. Though that might make things easier for me (and some others), I don't
It seems that at least one app (shaman) uses libalpm in a serious manner so it would be kind of mean to scrap it. But I guess you can't be nice for nice's sake. Hah. think it would really be a good approach for pacman/libalpm. Unless it was pyrex, or cython maybe hah. But still I'd say no. Cheers!