Seeing zero length files that look like package version numbers

nomorewindows · 2019-06-09 04:46:05

Confirming that the timestamp on these files are matching the time that I ran pacman today, I believe it has to do with using pacman or cleaning my cache with cacheclean from aur.

These zero length files show up in the directory where I executed either pacman or cacheclean.

I'm running a network pacman cache share so I want to keep back some previous packages.

I have confirmed seeing this on more than one computer.

The directory entries might show up as something like:
2.99pre5-1
1:1.04-5
2.3-4

These definitely look like version numbers but without the associated packages.
I suspect it might be cacheclean, instead of pacman.

seth · 2019-06-09 06:08:46

Assuming this is not just a PSA (there's no question) this typically happens if you'd do sth. like

if foo > bar; then echo foobar; fi

, maybe even w/ some bashism "(())" in a posix shell or just by omitting blanks inside "[[]]"

nomorewindows · 2019-06-09 06:44:25

seth wrote:

Assuming this is not just a PSA (there's no question) this typically happens if you'd do sth. like
if foo > bar; then echo foobar; fi
, maybe even w/ some bashism "(())" in a posix shell or just by omitting blanks inside "[[]]"

It's possible...looks like the binary for cacheclean is python3.

nomorewindows · 2019-06-09 22:20:18

This line describes the search parameters for packages:

bpat = re.compile("""
^([^-/][^/]*?)-         # (1) package name
[^-/\s]+-               # (2) version
[^-/\s]+                # (3) release
(-i686|-x86_64|-any)?   # (4) architecture
\.pkg\.tar              # (5) extension
(?:\.(?:gz|bz2|xz|Z))?  # (6) compresssion extension
(?:\.aria2|.sig)?       # (7) other extension
(?:\.part)?$                # (8) partially-downloaded files' extension
""", re.X)

I don't see anything in the code that gives an clue that it should be writing anything to the filesystem. List the files, and delete the ones that meet the criteria.

Last edited by nomorewindows (2019-06-09 22:22:33)

seth · 2019-06-10 07:40:08

Did you establish that those files get generated by invoking cacheclean?
Did you check whether maybe some alias or your PS1 or so are resposible (using a "cleaner" shell rc)?

Arch Linux

#1 2019-06-09 04:46:05

Seeing zero length files that look like package version numbers

#2 2019-06-09 06:08:46

Re: Seeing zero length files that look like package version numbers

#3 2019-06-09 06:44:25

Re: Seeing zero length files that look like package version numbers

#4 2019-06-09 22:20:18

Re: Seeing zero length files that look like package version numbers

#5 2019-06-10 07:40:08

Re: Seeing zero length files that look like package version numbers

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