[pacman-dev] What to do with pacsysclean and pacsize?

[Pierre Neidhardt]

On 14-11-20 15:33:33, Allan McRae wrote:
> pacsysclean is broken... In short it only looks for KiB in output to
> assess file size, whereas pacman now outputs the correct thing. See [1].
>  No-one has bothered to fix this.
> 
> pacsize was submitted as a replacement [2]. It currently works, but is
> another tool that parses pacman output.
> 
> 
> I think we should remove pacsysclean and not add pacsize.  There is
> expac available (and potentially being added to the pacman codebase for
> the next release).  [I am told expac can do the same thing but I don't
> know how...]

Query local packages, display size in MB.
    $ expac -Q -HM '%m\t%n'

Display size in KB, sort the output by size.
    $ expac -Q -HK '%m\t%n' | sort -n

Align at the 14th column instead of using tabs.
    $ expac -Q -HK '%14m %n'

Query DB packages.
    $ expac -S -HK '%m\t%n'

> Opinions?
> 
> [1] https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/41531
> [2] https://patchwork.archlinux.org/patch/2030/

I totally agree with your suggestion: expac could easily replace paclist,
pacsysclean/pacsize, pacsearch, and probably more.

It misses some features though:

* Colored output.

* Fallback to DB when local entry is not found. (This is basically what
  pacsearch is all about.)

* An automatic size unit adjustment as used by pacman. I think this is more than optional.

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.