I was recently considering to implement package file hooks. Quote from TODO.aaron : -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * feature for 3.1: package file hooks * I've been planning on this one for some time. Here's a simple rundown: in /etc/pacman.d/hooks: Hook /usr/include/* : /usr/bin/ctags -R /usr/include/*.h -f /usr/include/systags This will allow us to make "global hooks" to simplify a lot of repetitive install files (scrollkeeper, depmod, etc). This also allows us to move ldconfig out of pacman entirely. possible: /etc/pacman.hooks/* files for hooks, so packages can add them too -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It would allow cleaning up a number of repetitive tasks in scriptlets, and could be a nicer alternative to the function libraries idea (http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/10375). Though I didn't think much about it. But today I felt on this : http://www.linux.com/feature/144666 And this looks great, this feature might not even need to be implemented in pacman. But well, I don't know how well it would work in practice. It is just an idea to discuss about.