[pacman-dev] [PATCH] Read 'force' entry from packages

[Xavier Chantry]

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 12:51 AM, Dan McGee <dan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> We weren't reading this in from our packages, thus causing us not to write
> it out to our local database. Adding this now will help ease the upgrade
> path for epoch later and not require reinstallation of all force packages.
>
> Signed-off-by: Dan McGee <dan at archlinux.org>
> ---
>
> For maint, helps to address the problem Allan pointed out regarding upgrading
> existing packages that used the force flag.
>
> -Dan
>
>  lib/libalpm/be_package.c |    2 ++
>  1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/lib/libalpm/be_package.c b/lib/libalpm/be_package.c
> index 38cf357..ff266ae 100644
> --- a/lib/libalpm/be_package.c
> +++ b/lib/libalpm/be_package.c
> @@ -75,6 +75,8 @@ static int parse_descfile(struct archive *a, pmpkg_t *newpkg)
>                                STRDUP(newpkg->version, ptr, RET_ERR(PM_ERR_MEMORY, -1));
>                        } else if(!strcmp(key, "pkgdesc")) {
>                                STRDUP(newpkg->desc, ptr, RET_ERR(PM_ERR_MEMORY, -1));
> +                       } else if(!strcmp(key, "force")) {
> +                               newpkg->force = 1;
>                        } else if(!strcmp(key, "group")) {
>                                newpkg->groups = alpm_list_add(newpkg->groups, strdup(ptr));
>                        } else if(!strcmp(key, "url")) {
> --
> 1.7.3.1
>
>
>

I did not see a problem with that patch, and still don't see any, but
I have some new insight after trying out git master.

I think we need a similar patch in master, we still need to support
old package with just force. We should do that just like sync db does
(force -> epoch=1). This will ensure that epoch is always written in
local db for package with force.

diff --git a/lib/libalpm/be_package.c b/lib/libalpm/be_package.c
index ddcad59..254f830 100644
--- a/lib/libalpm/be_package.c
+++ b/lib/libalpm/be_package.c
@@ -184,6 +184,11 @@ static int parse_descfile(struct archive *a,
pmpkg_t *newpkg)
                                STRDUP(newpkg->version, ptr,
RET_ERR(PM_ERR_MEMORY, -1));
                        } else if(strcmp(key, "pkgdesc") == 0) {
                                STRDUP(newpkg->desc, ptr,
RET_ERR(PM_ERR_MEMORY, -1));
+                       } else if(strcmp(key, "force") == 0) {
+                               /* For backward compatibility, like in
sync_db_read */
+                               if(!newpkg->epoch) {
+                                       newpkg->epoch = 1;
+                               }
                        } else if(strcmp(key, "epoch") == 0) {
                                newpkg->epoch = atoi(ptr);
                        } else if(strcmp(key, "group") == 0) {


As for the maint patch, it seems weird that we will start to write
FORCE entries to local database now we decided to kill FORCE. Wouldn't
it be better to start writing EPOCH so that we don't start to clutter
the local db now with something which is dead ? :)

On my system I just have 17 packages to reinstall, 19MB download (but
0MB download actually, thats what a download cache is for). This is
done automatically on the first pacman -Su, and with above patch, the
transition should be made.
So I don't think we need to start writing anything to the local
database now, do we ?

If we still want to do that just to reduce a bit the (already small)
number of packages to reinstall, what about starting to write EPOCH in
maint ?
I believe we just need two small changes :
1) in maint : never write FORCE in local db but write EPOCH=1 instead
2) in master : we can drop reading FORCE from local db since it never
ever got written. (and EPOCH is already read)

But anyway this is really a minor point, and my last proposal would
actually need the 2-lines fix that got pushed to maint.