See http://code.toofishes.net/cgit/xavier/pacman.git/commit/?h=working&id=eeab3f... ================================== alpm: deprecate old interface Old interface is marked as deprecated: int alpm_sync_target(char *target); int alpm_sync_dbtarget(char *db, char *target); int alpm_add_target(char *target); int alpm_remove_target(char *target); New recommended interface: int alpm_add_pkg(pmpkg_t *pkg); int alpm_remove_pkg(pmpkg_t *pkg); ================================== Having interfaces dealing directly with pmpkg_t is more powerful and more accurate. Also see http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacman-dev/2009-June/008847.html However it's probably also less safe for bad frontends trying to do stupid things and trying to pass invalid or outdated pmpkg. I am not sure what the consequences could be, it might need some more thinking and a few sanity checks. I unified sync_pkg and add_pkg, however there was a slight behavior difference between them, which should be fixed. http://code.toofishes.net/cgit/xavier/pacman.git/commit/?h=working&id=fca9e7... ================================== pacman/upgrade: switch to new interface Note that there is a behavior change here : if the same package name appeared several times in the target list, the alpm_add_target interface chooses the new package, while alpm_add_pkg returns PKG_DUP. I don't see why we cannot unify the behavior of -S and -U, and just choose one behavior that applies to both. Otherwise, it's always possible to handle these different behaviors in the frontend, it just requires more work. ================================== I just picked the two commits I found most relevant and for which I saw some possible concerns, but there are ~10 commits related to this interface rework on my branch.