[pacman-dev] Little question regarding alpm

[Aurelien Foret]

Joao Estevao wrote:
> I'm currently trying to write a front end in python and a python
> wrapper to alpm and I'm running into some problems.
> 
> I can't seem to be able to install a package twice. All goes well the
> first time, but then I get this:
> 
> DEBUG: closing database 'extra'
> DEBUG: freeing package cache for repository 'extra'
> 
> Then I tought I might have to re-open the 'extra' db, so I close it
> and then I re-open it and get this:
> 
> FLOW2: target 'alsaplayer' not found -- looking for provisions
> 
> or sometimes I get :
> 
> RuntimeError: transaction not initialized
> 
> or sometimes it works.
> 
> I guess my question is this. Why does alpm close the db and free the
> pkg cache when one installs some package(s)? Couldn't it refresh the
> db and the pkg cache?
> 
> Thanks in advance and please correct me if I'm wrong.

To answer your question, the library is updating the cache each time a 
package is installed or removed.
A database can only be closed if the frontend requested it 
(alpm_db_unregister), or if the library resources are released 
(alpm_release).

It would help to get the whole set of debug logs (set the PM_OPT_LOGMASK 
option to 0xFF) to have a better idea of what's happening.

-- 
Aurelien