Bug#747889: ben: creating a ben.cache from a directory of Packages and Sources files

[Mehdi Dogguy <mehdi@dogguy.org>]

Hi,

On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 06:03:20PM +0200, Johannes Schauer <j.schauer@email.de> wrote:
> in bug#747879 I asked to support "ben query" on Packages and Sources
> files without needing a ben.cache file. On the other hand, ben.cache
> files are super because if I want to do multiple queries, then ben.cache
> loads much faster than multiple Packages and Sources files.
> 
> I currently create a ben.cache file by creating a directory structure
> containing
> 
> 	dists/unstable/main/binary-amd64/Packages
> 	dists/unstable/main/binary-armel/Packages
> 	[...]
> 	dists/unstable/main/source/Sources
> 
> all of them being symlinks to my actual Packages and Sources files. This
> works well because curl supports the file:// protocol.
> 
> But this has the downside that not only do I have to create this
> directory and symlink structure but also that curl creates a copy of all
> those files in the cache-dir which I then have to remove after ben.cache
> is created.
> 

Well, "ben download" may create a ben.cache file if asked to after downloading
Packages_* and Sources files: ben download --use-cache [...] (iirc).

I really would like to avoid adding an ad-hoc way to create a ben.cache file
especially when "ben download" can already do it. Or, please describe a nice
and integrated way to do that. I have to admit I don't have great ideas for
this one.

Another solution could be writing/building such a specific tool using libben-ocaml
in your package.

What do you think?

Regards,

-- 
Mehdi Dogguy