Re: [RFC] Multi-arch-enabled command-line interface
2010/8/12 Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org>:
> For read operations (show,showpkg,policy):
> NAME - Display the package for all architectures
> NAME:ARCH - Display the package for the ARCH architecture
Most show* commands for different architectures are pretty boring.
The show-entry for apt:i386 and apt:amd64 differs only in the
Architecture line. I would expect that show shows me the
package i would get by installing "apt"…
In APT policy is currently the only one differing and i am not
completely sure about that one either…
> For install:
> NAME - Install the native candidate (or Architecture: all)
> NAME:ARCH - Install the candidate for ARCH
Imagine a package only existing in i386 and your are native amd64.
Do you want that the user really worries about the architecture of
this package? APT uses "the best" architecture to install
(best defined as non-virtual architecture listed at first).
> For remove and purge:
> NAME - Remove all packages named NAME
> NAME:ARCH - Remove the package NAME for architecture ARCH
I admit that i haven't thought about that before as i am removing to
few packages by hand… ;) APT currently chooses again "the best".
I guess it feels more natural to have the same meaning for
"no arch provided" in all commands than giving it a new meaning
for each command.
I mean, you looked at the package with "show", you installed it
with "install" and you removed it later on with "purge".
The first will possibly display a lot of entries and the last will
have "unexpected" results as it removes ALL packages with this
name rather than only the one installed before…
> Does this make sense? For APT2, this would be extended with versions for
> RPM (as RPM allows multiple version to be installed at the same time);
> show show all version, install installs the candidate, and remove
> removes all versions (of course accepting =ver and /archive for limiting
> this everywhere).
I have basically zero knowledge about the RPM world so no comment
on that one, but have you looked at apt-rpm?
Maybe they had some clever idea…
Best regards,
David Kalnischkies
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