[pacman-dev] [PATCH v2 0/4] Handle .alpm_db_version file

[Allan McRae]

On 23/09/14 00:02, Dan McGee wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2014 at 7:44 AM, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> 
>> This is v2 of a patchset submitted long ago.  It has been rebased and
>> had its memory leaks fixed.
>>
>> With this patchset, pacman will create a local database directory if it
>> is missing (but not the root of the database - i.e. /var/lib/pacman/ still
>> needs to be present).  When creating the database or finding an empty local
>> database it will add the .alpm_db_version file and add the version. For
>> existing pacman databases this file is created by the pacman-db-upgrade
>> script.  Finally the version of the local database is checked during
>> db validation.
>>
> I'm fine with the idea, but on a more meta level, is there any reason this
> should be a hidden file? Why not just call it something like DB-VERSION so
> it is big and obvious? I find the idea of hidden files in non-user home
> directories less than ideal as it makes investigation that much harder
> until you remember to do a full `ls -la`.
> 
> (For example: svn stores its version in the root of the repository in a
> `format` file,
> http://serverfault.com/questions/277441/difference-between-the-format-and-db-format-files-in-a-subversion-repository
> )
> 

I'm happy renaming this.  I'll use ALPM_DB_VERSION unless someone speaks up.