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karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

I've noticed some commands provided by the pacman package have help messages that could be improved. Is it something that already is on some todo list? Are user contributions accepted?
What kind of suggestions are welcome and which ones draw ire of the developers? Anyone cares about colons, dashes and capital letters?

Below are only a few examples. Let me know where should I shove my critique ;-)

I think '$command_name -h' should provide brief description of what the command does and methods of use. At least in some cases an example is very helpful.

$ makepkg -h
makepkg (pacman) 4.1.1

Usage: /usr/bin/makepkg [options]

Options:
<listed here>

Hey, '$command_name ($package_name) $package_version' is a neat idea, I like it.
But ... what does makepkg do? I think it should explicitly say this.
It's a text file, so let's see what's inside:

$ head -3 /usr/bin/makepkg
#!/usr/bin/bash
#
#   makepkg - make packages compatible for use with pacman

OK, I think I get it.

$ pacsort -h
pacsort v4.1.1
Usage: pacsort [options] [files...]

  -f, --files             assume inputs are filepaths of packages
  -h, --help              display this help message
  -k, --key <index>       sort input starting on specified column
  -r, --reverse           sort in reverse order (default: oldest to newest)
  -t, --separator <sep>   specify field separator (default: space)
  -z, --null              lines end with null bytes, not newlines

I don't like the '$command_name v$package_version' style.
What does it do?

$ file /usr/bin/pacsort
/usr/bin/pacsort: ELF 32-bit LSB  executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=3409449b6319c8755a678afe64066b9ad59cc4c0, stripped

It's a secret ;P

$ repo-add -h
repo-add (pacman) 4.1.1

Usage: repo-add [options] <path-to-db> <package|delta> ...

repo-add will update a package database by reading a package file.
Multiple packages to add can be specified on the command line.

Options:
  -d, --delta       generate and add delta for package update
  -n, --new         only add packages that are not already in the database
  -f, --files       update database's file list
  --nocolor         turn off color in output
  -q, --quiet       minimize output
  -s, --sign        sign database with GnuPG after update
  -k, --key <key>   use the specified key to sign the database
  -v, --verify      verify database's signature before update

See repo-add(8) for more details and descriptions of the available options.

Example:  repo-add /path/to/repo.db.tar.gz pacman-3.0.0-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz

It even has an example which is missing from the man page :-)
Bravo!

$ repo-elephant -h
repo-elephant (pacman) 4.1.1

Please move along, there is nothing to see here.

<blink>
I was intrigued, but the friendly repo-mammal is telling the truth:

$ diff /usr/bin/repo-elephant /usr/bin/repo-add
$

<sigh>

$ testdb -h
usage:
     testdb [-b <pacman db>]                : check the local database
     testdb [-b <pacman db>] core extra ... : check the listed sync databases

Any chance to learn what exactly is it checking?

$ file /usr/bin/testdb
/usr/bin/testdb: ELF 32-bit LSB  executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=d9867648715341957e34b30ce81e152db4dbb718, stripped

I guess not.

$ testpkg -h
Cannot find the given file.

Errrr.

$ file /usr/bin/testpkg
/usr/bin/testpkg: ELF 32-bit LSB  executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=89e43aebb9e48a45b6715e235f8b8b8e71291bdc, stripped

Errrr squared.

Here's a toast to all who've read the whole post - cheers!

jakobcreutzfeldt

Member

Registered: 2011-05-12

Posts: 1,041

Re: repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

Looks like we need a wiki page summarizing all the commands in the Pacman suite. I didn't even know about most of them.

Last edited by jakobcreutzfeldt (2013-06-10 13:28:55)

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

Looks like we need a wiki page summarizing all the commands in the Pacman suite. I didn't even know about most of them.

I don't know them either, that's why I decided to familiarize myself with them, but I figured out that maybe I can help make the documentation better at the same time.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,330

Website

Re: repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

repo-elephant is defintely the most secure and stable and has the fewest bugs.  I'd love to see the thread "after last repo-elephant system wont boot".

EDIT: holy co... elephant, someone (in addition to me) was bored.  Compare `repo-elephant` to `repo-elephant hello`  eh ... or any word for that matter.  Oops: silly me, check the code: it's randomly one or the other.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-06-10 13:47:58)

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

Snowman

Developer/Forum Fellow

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2004-08-20

Posts: 5,212

Re: repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

I've noticed some commands provided by the pacman package have help messages that could be improved. Is it something that already is on some todo list? Are user contributions accepted?
What kind of suggestions are welcome and which ones draw ire of the developers? Anyone cares about colons, dashes and capital letters?

If they are not "fixed" in git, then you should open a bug report or submit a patch on the pacman ML. As for the style (colons, etc.), you should ask on the pacman ML or irc channel.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,182

Re: repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

I've noticed some commands provided by the pacman package have help messages that could be improved. Is it something that already is on some todo list? Are user contributions accepted?
What kind of suggestions are welcome and which ones draw ire of the developers? Anyone cares about colons, dashes and capital letters?

I'll admit to tl;dr on most of the post, so I'll just respond to this part. Yes, user contributions are accepted on the pacman-dev mailing list. You can ask questions there as well or in #archlinux-pacman on Freenode. No support or bug reports there, only discussion about development.

Jristz

Member

From: America/Santiago

Registered: 2011-06-11

Posts: 1,022

Re: repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

repo-elefant, ILoveCandy...I miss another eastern egg here??

but yes, are so may options and many not have for example a standar --version output, some of theme use $utilname v$pacver other not use the v and other use $toolname (pacman) $pacver

this inconsistency is a know bug,feature, intentional or is in TODO for fix??? ... Allan

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Well, I suppose that this is somekind of signature, no?

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: repo-elephant and friends - question about '-h' switch of pacman utils

I've noticed some commands provided by the pacman package have help messages that could be improved. Is it something that already is on some todo list? Are user contributions accepted?
What kind of suggestions are welcome and which ones draw ire of the developers? Anyone cares about colons, dashes and capital letters?

If they are not "fixed" in git, then you should open a bug report or submit a patch on the pacman ML. As for the style (colons, etc.), you should ask on the pacman ML or irc channel.

Can someone please tell me which repo and which branch should I look at? I'm guessing https://projects.archlinux.org/pacman.git/?h=master is The One, but I'd like an ACK.

I filed a bug concerning not punctuation, but a typo: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/35755
I posted an e-mail to the ML https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail … 17391.html