Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2013 15:15:33 +0200
From: Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org>
To: Dubiousjim <dubiousjim@gmail.com>
Cc: alpine-devel@lists.alpinelinux.org
Subject: Re: [alpine-devel] futher apk ideas
Message-ID: <20130701151533.079b3256@ncopa-desktop.alpinelinux.org>
In-Reply-To: <20130628171945.GD1712@zen.nyu.edu>
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	<20130628163747.GB1712@zen.nyu.edu>
	<20130628171945.GD1712@zen.nyu.edu>
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On Fri, 28 Jun 2013 13:19:45 -0400
Dubiousjim <dubiousjim@gmail.com> wrote:

...
> > What if you want list 'depends' without recursing? (apk info <show the depends>)
> 
> Right, I agree it should be possible to do both. I was thinking maybe
> "apk info -D" for all the depends, recursively, and "apk info -D -1" for
> just a single level. But maybe it'd be better to have "apk info -D" just
> do the single level (as it does now), and "apk info -D --recursive" do
> the recursing. And maybe it'd be better to use "-R" as the short-form
> for "--recursive".
> 
> Instead of -R/--rdepends, then, we'd need something like --N/--needers.
> But perhaps we can find a better name.

I like -r/--rdepends better than -N/--needers.

...

> > I think recursive operation makes no sense for apk info, but for apk
> > search, yes.
> 
> No, I've several times had to hand-script recursive operations for "apk
> info". If you're just going downwards, then you could use apk search
> too; but you might want to go recursively upwards, limited just to
> installed packages.

When and why would you need something like that?

Situations where I have needed something similar:
* figuring out build order (but then I need to use makedepends so I can
  not really use apk here)
* figuring out which files are needed to get downloaded to build an
  iso. I use apk fetch --recursive --simulate for this
  http://git.alpinelinux.org/cgit/alpine-iso/tree/Makefile#n34
* figure out what packages would get installed (use apk add --simulate)
* figure out what package would get deleted (use apk del --simulate)

> > When i think of it, --recursive only make sense downwards in dependency
> > tree (similar when talking about directories in file system) with the
> > exception of 'apk del'
> 
> As I said, I can remember needing this several times over the past
> months. Don't remember the details though; or anyway, can't remember
> them in a form where I can easily abstract away the idiosyncracies of
> what I happened to be doing.

It would be interesting to know what kind of problems you needed to
solve. Might be it could be solved in a different way.

(I must admit, I am not too happy with apk fetch --simluate 2>&1 | sed
's/^Downloading: //' so yes there is room for improvements here)
 
> > The above summary would be change to (* means a breakage from current):
> > Options for del command:
> >   -r, --rdepends          Recursively delete all top-level reverse dependencies
> >                           too
> > Options for fix command:
> > * -R, --recursive         Recursively fix all dependencies too
> > 
> > Options for fetch command:
> >   -R, --recursive         Recursively fetch the PACKAGE and all its dependencies
> > 
> > Options for audit command:
> > * -R, --recursive         Recursively list individually all entries in new directories
> > 
> > 
> > Since -R now means 'recursive' and -d already means 'description' we
> > could change apk info's non recursive to -D
> > 
> > Options for info command:
> > * -D, --depends           List packages that the PACKAGE depends on
> > 
> > But i am also ok with keeping 'apk info -R' as an exception. (i think
> > -R was originally taken to correspond to BSD's pkg_info -R)
> > 
> > how does that sound?
> 
> 
> How about this:
> 
> 
> Options for del command:
>   -N, --needed            Recursively delete all top-level reverse dependencies too
>   -r                      Synonym for -N (deprecated)

I kinda still prefer -r/--rdepends

> No option is needed here to recursively delete all downward dependencies
> that aren't required by anything in 'world', right? Because we are
> always going to do that by design.
> 
> 
> Options for fix command:
>   -R, --recursive         Recursively fix all dependencies too
>   -d                      Synonym for -R (deprecated)

Those are good IMHO.

>   -r, --reinstall         Reinstall the package (default) <--- would
> prefer not to have "apk del -r" be canonical, to avoid confusion with
> other uses of "-r" like this

We could maybe remove (or mark as deprecated) -r/--reinstall for apk
fix, since it is the default now anyways.

> Options for fetch command:
>   -R, --recursive         Recursively fetch the PACKAGE and all its dependencies

Good.

> Options for audit command:
>   -R, --recursive         Recursively list individually all entries in new directories
>   -r                      Synonym for -R (deprecated) <-- as with "apk
> fix -r"

Good.
 
> Options for info command: (or "apk info --world", if we go that route)
>   -d, --description       Print description for PACKAGE
>   -D, --depends           List packages that the PACKAGE (directly) depends on
>   -R                      Synonym for -D (deprecated)

I'm ok with those. (But i think I'd be ok to keep -R too for --depends)

>   -N, --needed            List all installed packages (directly) depending on PACKAGE
>   -r                      Synonym for -N (deprecated)
> 
> Except we might introduce breakage here and have -R combine with -D and
> -N to make them recursive.

I understand what you mean, and, yes you definitively have a point
here.

But, lets say that you want figure the total size (including
depends). Now, you'd want run 'apk info --recursive -s' but you'd don't
want print the --depends. (specially if we fix 'apk info -q -s pkg' to
print '<size> <pkgname>' so it could be sort -n, or similar)

So, basically, we need differ 'print depends' and 'run recursively on
depends'. I don't think we can use -R in combination with
--depends/--needed/--rdepends.

*if* we want keep the possibility open to run apk info recursively, we should probably use:
-R(?)/--recursive       recursively display info for dependency packages
-?/--recursive-reverse  Recursively display info for packages required by the specified


> Options for search command: (or "apk info" without "--world", if we go
> that route)
>   -d, --description       Search package descriptions (implies -a)
>   -N, --needed            List all (installed and uninstalled) packages (directly) depending on PACKAGE
>   -r                      Synonym for -N (deprecated)
>   -R                      Combines with -N to make it recursive
> 
> 
> Again, I'm not especially fond of the particular choice -N/--needed.
> Just using it because I don't have something better.

agree. Not too fond of -N/--needed either. 'needed' sounds like a synonym for 'depends'

maybe -b/--required-by or some combination of -b and --needed-by/--required-by.

for recursing the reverse deps (apk del/apk info) maybe
--recurse-required-by or --recurse-needed-by

I think -b and -B are 'free'. 'B' as in required-'B'y/needed-'B'y or
'B'ackwards.

-nc


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