[pacman-dev] [PATCH] add makedepends to package and database

[Allan McRae]

Pierre Schmitz wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 June 2009 22:38:52 Aaron Griffin wrote:
>   
>> I'm not thinking in terms of scripting and the like, I'm thinking in
>> terms of information. Like... "oh this needed mysql-libs to build, so
>> maybe it has mysql support"
>>     
>
> Imho the other way round is more usefull:
> * What packages depend on e.g. mysql at build time?
> ** Maybe I want to move/remove it. Quite often we want to know if a package
>    can safely be removed.
> ** Maybe I have a .so bump and want to know what might break in future
>    rebuilds
> ** Maybe I want to rebuild those that are statically linked and rebuild them
>    (e.g. bug fixes, security etc.)
> * With a complete dependency graph I can automaticaly check for unused libs
>   etc. (think about repo cleanup)
> * Make a repo check/validation easier. E.g. cross repo dependencies,
> ...
>   

Note that all of these are easily done already...  either grepping 
through the ABS tree or using the rebuild scripts that I posted to the 
arch-dev-public list.

The only advantage I see of this is that instead of grepping through the 
ABS tree (which may not be implemented for all users of pacman...), you 
can grep through the pacman sync db.  I see no reason for adding this to 
the -S/Qi output as when it is important, it will be displayed in 
optdepends.

Allan