[pacman-dev] [PATCH] Added a new database backend

[Sivert Berg]

On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:41:04 +0100
Nagy Gabor <ngaba at bibl.u-szeged.hu> wrote:

> First of all, many thanks for your huge work. I will support your
> attempt on reworking our db backend stuff. I haven't completely reviewed
> your patch yet (it is quite advanced, I guess I will learn a lot from
> here), but I have some "pre-reading" comments. (Keep in my mind: I am
> just a pacman contributor here.)
> 

Thanks a lot for taking the time to look at the patch, it's much appreciated!

> > -	be_files.c \
> > +	be_ at BACKEND@.c \
> 2. I think we need a more sophisticated approach here. I would be happy,
> if we had database backend plugins (be_files.so, be_packed.so,
> be_sqlite.so, ...) for dlopen(), and some way to inform pacman about the
> database handler (for example: /var/lib/pacman/local/.backend, which has
> one line: packed). I think this is quite straightforward (but needed) to
> implement.

I agree with that. The @BACKEND@ was just a quick hack to prevent things from breaking.

> 3.* Our whole db back-end system needs some redesign (independent from
> your work): If we have fast database back-end, I am not sure we need
> this ugly pkgcache stuff. Probably pkgcache should be moved to back-end
> level (if needed).

Yes, if you look at the packed backend the pkgcache basicly duplicates the data that's already mmaped, kind of a waste of memory.

> 4.* When we rework pmpkg_t, we must keep in mind, that at this moment it
> is the structure of database entry *and* package file. When we
> restructure things, we must find a good place for ".tar.gz".

Maybe we should start a thread where we could just throw around some ideas on possible ways to rework the current package handling in a sane way.

Cheers
-- 
Sivert Berg <sivertb at stud.ntnu.no>