[Yum] yum-queue proof-of-concept script

Michael Stenner mstenner at ece.arizona.edu
Fri Mar 26 05:19:27 UTC 2004


On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 04:03:00PM +0200, Mihai Maties wrote:
> I made a script (attached) based on Seth's idea about a queueing
> system addon to yum. The main difference is that I'm using another
> aproach on the queue: instead of queuing commands to be issued by
> yum I'm keeping lists of packages to be installed, removed, updated
> etc.

This seems to be pretty similar to the requested script in a
functional sense.

> I didn't think that xml is best suited for this aproach 

Maybe, maybe not.  The nice thing about xml is the whole eXtensible
thing.  It's easy to back yourself into a corner when cooking up your
own formats for things.  xml really helps you out there.  When you
realize 6 months later that you need to add some feature, xml will
usually let you.

> therefore the script is written in bash and uses a file for saving
> the queue (default /var/cache/yum/yum.queue).

I'm going to let you in on a little secret.  Around here, we're not
big fans of any shell script that doesn't fit on a single screen ;)
Sure, there are exceptions, and this script is about as nice as a
shell script can be, but...

I think python is the way to go here, for many reasons.  The biggest
is just that yum is a python project, and it might make sense (if not
now, perhaps in the future) to have the yum-queue script actually use
some code from the yum libs.  If the script is written in python, then
that's easy.

> Usage: yum-queue <command>
>   Valid commands:
>     -h, --help, help            Guess what, this help screen
>     s, sh, show                 Prints the current queue
>     r, run                      Runs the queue (not implemented)
>     +, install [package]...     Add the package(s) to the INSTALL queue
>     -, rm, remove [package]...  Remove the package(s) from other ...

I'd rather not see these shortcuts.  I think they lead to more
confusion than they're worth.  eg  "hmm.. is 'r' short for remove or
run?"

> Comments/suggestions/bug-reports/improvements are of course welcomed.
> 
> The 'run' command is not implemented yet because I'm waiting for
> some feedback
> 
> first. I didn't make up my mind about how exactly this will be implemented. 
> yum -C would be the best aproach but...not always, so I'm still in the 
> "evaluating side effects" process.

I think this is really cool and really promising.  Do you know python?
If so, and you're willing to do this in python (and I think I'd still
be in favor of xml), then I think we'd be ready to hammer out some
more detailed policies for its behavior (the side effects and
conflicts, and icky stuff like that).  Thanks for the great work.

					-Michael
-- 
  Michael D. Stenner                            mstenner at ece.arizona.edu
  ECE Department, the University of Arizona                 520-626-1619
  1230 E. Speedway Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85721-0104                 ECE 524G



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