Re: ara

[George Danchev <danchev@spnet.net>]

On Friday 30 January 2009 19:48:07 Florent Monnier wrote:
> Re,
> (please excuse me if this message is a little bit out of topic)

Hello,

> I have installed ara, and with the help from another mailing list I have
> installed the base required database :
>
> DEBV=sid;\
> wget -q -O - \
>   ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/$DEBV/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz\
>
>   | gunzip - > /var/lib/dpkg/available

cat /etc/ara.config
(* System-wide default configuration file for Ara *)

ara {
  database {
    paths: [("/var/lib/dpkg/", "^available$");
            ("/var/lib/apt/lists/", "_Packages$");
            ("/var/lib/apt/lists/", "_Sources$");
            ("/var/lib/dpkg/", "^status$")]
  }

> but it doesn't provide informations about pathes and relations between
> files and packages, 

Yes ara does not need to replicate that since it is handled by 
dpkg -S /patth/file, dlocate and apt-file, at least.

> I have been pointed this one: 
> DEBV=sid; ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/$DEBV/Contents-i386.gz
>
> Is ara able to provide informations form this file ?
> If yes where should I put this file and with which file name ?

ara does not use Contents-$arch files, but if you really want them to analyze 
and parse it yourself, you can have them this way:

apt-get install auto-apt
auto-apt update 

(and watch the paths being used)

> Also some people pointed me this file :
> DEBV=sid; ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/$DEBV/main/source/Sources.gz
>
> Should I expect something usefull from this one ? (does ara uses it ?)

Yes, to query Build-Depends field for instance: 
ara 'build-depends:/libx11-dev/' 
(more sophisticated queries are of course possible)

> Not sure if someone else on earth will be willing to use ara out of debian,
> but it case yes, would you think it would be usefull if I write a basic
> README.database.txt file to explain where to get the databases and where to
> put these files for other non-debian users of ara ?

see ara(1), section OTHER FILES. Of course if you still think there is 
something to be corrected your contributions would be welcomed.

> just a detail, the url at the end of this file is not up to date:
> http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/ara/trunk/doc/ara.m4?op=file&rev=0&sc=0

Thanks, that will be corrected.

> Thanks

Welcome.

-- 
pub 4096R/0E4BD0AB 2003-03-18 <people.fccf.net/danchev/key pgp.mit.edu>