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#1 2017-09-29 14:31:35

jschuster
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Registered: 2013-06-30
Posts: 14
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Log optional dependencies in pacman.log?

When I perform a system update, I typically read through the output in pacman.log rather than the scrollback (partially because my scrollback is limited, partially because I can more easily page up and down through the full log file). It seems others do this, too.

I just found out that pacman doesn't log the optional dependencies it warns you about in its output, though. Is there any particular reason for this? Logging those messages would mean you wouldn't miss the warning when checking update information in the log, and would allow you to go back and check later if there was a new optional dependency you forgot to install.

Note that just checking the dependencies of your explicitly installed packages is not necessarily enough. For example, I installed gnome-clocks, which depends on libcanberra, which has an optional dependency on libcanberra-pulse. I missed the warning about that optional dependency, and so when the sound didn't work in some cases it took a fair bit of research to fix the underlying problem (that I hadn't installed libcanberra-pulse).

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#2 2017-09-29 14:36:47

apg
Developer
Registered: 2012-11-10
Posts: 211

Re: Log optional dependencies in pacman.log?

paccheck --opt-depends --recursive gnome-clocks

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#3 2017-10-01 16:22:12

jschuster
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Registered: 2013-06-30
Posts: 14
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Re: Log optional dependencies in pacman.log?

I understand that it's possible to look up the recursive optional dependencies. The point is that that shouldn't have to be an extra step I think about. The logs should record any notifications about installed/removed packages.

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#4 2017-10-02 18:05:22

eschwartz
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Registered: 2014-08-08
Posts: 4,097

Re: Log optional dependencies in pacman.log?

Just because you say it should be so, does not mean it must be so.

I could say as a counter-argument, that the log is there to tell you about the pacman transactions you made, which means installed/upgraded/removed packages and database synchronizations, and scriptlet/hook message logs which modify the system and provide contextual information about the upgrade itself.

Merely mentioning the optional dependencies that you might not care about are out of scope, and better suited to a tool that allows you to query the information freely available in the pacman database. With the benefit that paccheck as demonstrated allows you to see messages you may have long ago forgotten or never realized were relevant (which pacman.log would not help you with!)


Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)

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#5 2017-10-03 00:51:52

jschuster
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Registered: 2013-06-30
Posts: 14
Website

Re: Log optional dependencies in pacman.log?

I guess that's a consistent rationale. I wish I had a better solution for this case (where an optional dependency is more like necessary for full expected functionality), but I can't think of one. Thanks for the explanation, though.

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