[pacman-dev] -Qu vs -Su

[Nagy Gabor]

> 2007/9/28, Xavier <shiningxc at gmail.com>:
> > Since the discussion on http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/7884 is confusing
> me,
> > I thought I would bring it here.
> >
> > The issue reported by Dan is the following :
> > The -Qu output is different than -Su one, because -Su resolves
> dependencies,
> > while -Qu does not.
> > My first question : is that really an issue?
> >
> > The description of -Qu says :
> >   -u, --upgrades       list all packages that can be upgraded
> >
> > IMO, a new dependency does not belong to the list of packages that can be
> > upgraded. So it isn't necessarily a bug if it shows up in -Su, but not in
> > -Qu.
> >
> >
> > Also, note that -Qu can't match exactly -Su, because -Su is interactive :
> > Replace %s with %s/%s? [Y/n]
> > %s conflicts with %s. Remove %s? [Y/n]
> >
> > But if you answer no to the conflicts question, pacman just fails and stops
> > there. So not very interesting.
> > And the replace question is generally answered by yes.
> > So answering yes to both questions should give a good picture of what will
> > happen.
> >
> 
> I also quote Aaron's comment from Flyspray:
> > I want one function that says "give me a list of packages that are
> upgradable". This function can be used in -Qu (simply returning the list and
> printing), -Su (using the list as targets), and -Sup (returning the list and
> calling some public alpm_pkg_get_url() on each member).
> >
> > A public accessor to get a URL for a package can make -Qu and -Sup almost
> the same, except with different output functions.
> 
> 
> I uderstand "a list of packages that are upgradeable" as a list of
> _already_installed_ packages that have newer versions available or
> there are new packages that replace them.
> This is different from the list that -Su and -Sup gives, because they
> list packages that are _going_to_be_installed_, including new
> dependencies.
> And this is also different from -Qu.
> The description of -Qu says "list all packages that can be upgraded"
> But -Qu doesn't do this! It displays _new_versions_(and replacements)_
> of currently installed packages. This is different.
> 
> So I propose the function list_upgradeable_packages() to list those
> installed packages that are not in IgnorePkg and has either new
> version, replacement or older version with options=(force) available
> in repos.
> Then -Qu, -Su and -Sup should do the following with the result of that
> function:
> -Qu - just print the result
> -Su - use the result as a list of packages that are going to be upgraded
> (exactly the same as -S pkg1 pkg2 ... pkgN)
> -Sup - same as -Su just print URIs
My opinion:
The description of -Qu should say :
  -u, --upgrades       list outdated packages
and other switches should be able to used with -Qu, such as -i etc. etc.

User can use -Su if he want to see the to-be-installed packages, then answer no
to the "proceed question".

A bit off in this thread, but the current command-line handling of pacman is
chaotic, for example the bahaviour of -Quil is not defined. We should
restructure a bit, we should categorize options: (my example assumes -S)
-operation: -l, -i, -c, -l, -p, -s, -y ... <- more than one allowed (pacman try
to do all requested operations)
-loadtarget/targettype-modifier options, -g, (--provider), -u (!!) ... <- only
one allowed
-trans_prepare/new-target-pull options: -d, (--noconflict option), -e ... <-
more than one allowed
-trans_commit options: -f, --asdeps, -w (do nothing) ... <- more than one allowed
As an example, I explain what should pacman -Quetcl do:
List all explicitly installed outdated not-a-dependency-of-other packages and
show their changlogs and filelists ;-)

Bye, ngaba

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