[Yum-devel] yum command tree

[seth vidal]

> Am I to understand that list and info take the same args, but simply
> produce different outputs?  If so, this inspires a crazy idea that
> would be very powerful, but might be a PITA.  Something along the
> lines of rpm's --qf.  Something like '--listformat="%n %v %r" etc,
> which modifies the output format of 'list'.  Probably the best way to
> do this would be to simply build a python dict for each package and
> then allow the user to directly pass a dict-based format string:  
>   "%(name)s %(version) %(repo)s"

I'd be disinclined to get that crazy. It makes the man page unmanageable
and if someone wants to generate reports from yum metadata maybe that's
a whole different ballgame.




> You mean "yum list dulug"?  I'd suggest staying away from syntax where
> you can expect either an "option" or an "argument".  For example, what
> If I name a repo "updates"?  Similarly, I could name a repo "xfce".
> I'd suggest "yum list repo dulug".  Basically, I think 'yum list'
> should come in one of 3 forms:
> 
>   yum list                        (equivalent to 'list all', probably)
>   yum list <option>               (eg. 'yum list updates')
>   yum list <option> <argument(s)> (eg. 'yum list repo dulug')
> 
> That way, if anything comes after 'yum list', it MUST be one of the
> available options.
> 
> >     - package string+

sorry this should be read as $package_string+

which just means-  some string describing package(s)

ie: foo-1.1*
not package foo-1.1*

does that help some?


> Might be nice to have the option to control where 'search' looks for
> the match string.  Perhaps a --searchfields=name,desc option.  Also,
> it would be cool if search/provides also took a similar listformat
> option.  In fact, the two could be combined into one.  You could
> simply have the 'match' element be '(none)' or something for all but
> search.

I think that's going after complexity that will be seldom used and very
confusing.


> I think I'm coming to a more generalized searching concept that has
> some appeal.  For example, 'yum query deps httpd\*' would be
> equivalent to 
>   yum --format '%(name) %(deps)' --searchfields=name search httpd\*
> 
making life VERY VERY hard

remember - we have to carry along all this syntax for future versions.

jbj went down this road and madness lies beyond.


-sv