[Yum] Dependencies on Removing Packages

[Michael Stenner]

On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 11:25:20PM -0300, Daniel Bolgheroni wrote:
> I'm trying to remove some packages in a different way. By default, yum
> removes all packages that depends on the one being removed.
> 
> The portable NetBSD package system (runs on GNU/Linux too) has useful
> options regarding this, like -r and -R in pkg_delete. The parameter -r
> is what yum does, by default.
> 
> I would like to remove the given package and any packages it depends on,
> unless some other package still needs a dependent package.
> 
> Are there any way to do this with yum?

No.  This is an interesting concept.  There is an obvious case when
this is undesirable.  Lets say foo depends on bar.  If the user never
uses bar directly, and nothing else depends on bar, then it's great to
remove it when you remove foo.  For example, it might be nice to have
xmms-mp3 go away when I remove xmms.  However, what if the user DOES
use bar directly.  This can't show up as a dep, of course.  For
example, k3b depends on cdrecord.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not criticizing the option.  I'm just curious
how often the scenario I describe is an issue.

In any event, I doubt it's likely to become an option in yum, although
it may be a good candidate for a plugin.  This leads me to ask: will
there be a facility for the plugins to take command-line args?  Menno?

/me ducks
					-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