Bug#622347: python-apt: Please add a public function fetch_archives

[Patrick Schoenfeld <schoenfeld@debian.org>]

Package: python-apt
Version: 0.7.100.2
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

I'm currently working on a python-apt based variant of fai-mirror,
which uses python-apt to resolve dependencies for the packages
and download them. Currently the only way to NOT install packages and download
them only is to use an internal function _fetch_archives for example like this:

fetch_progress = apt.progress.text.AcquireProgress()
depcache = self.cache._depcache
pm = apt_pkg.PackageManager(depcache)
fetcher = apt_pkg.Acquire(fetch_progress)
self.cache._fetch_archives(fetcher, pm)

Its obvious that this is quiet unfortunate. Therefore it would be nice,
if python-apt supported a method which allows fetching packages only.

Best Regards,
Patrick