apt-tree enhancements

[hiddenman]

Hi.

Continue this discussion: https://gist.github.com/damphat/6214499?permalink_comment_id=5333598#gistcomment-5333598

Is there a such an option in apt-rdepends? If so, this is possible.
Yes, there is:

In --build-depends mode, the possible values are: Build-Depends, Build-Depends-Indep, Build-Conflicts, Build-Conflicts-Indep.

Also, I believe it should either print the build-depends OR the Depends (controllable by a new --build-depends flag), as there are very few (if any) use-cases for a combined list including both. And whoever needs both can always run it twice, with and without the flag.

Agree.

This might be feasible, possibly best done in parse_deps(). I suggest the mark be (!) for not available, and no mark if available.

Sounds reasonable.

A new --plain flag can easily do that, perhaps using tr -d to remove the UTF (and whitespace?) characters. Indentation can be replaced with TABs, or completely stripped if --no-indent, which would imply --plain.

That would be nice.

The main purpose we need such a script is that we have a local full bootsrap derivative of the Debian distro.
And when there is a new package requirement, we:

1. First check what BuildDepends it has and if they are missed in our local repository then we build them
2. Second check what Depends it has and if they are missed in our local repository then we build them

The main problem is that each of these BuildDepends and Depends has its own Depends and BuildDepends and this goes recursively deep, for some packages there were 30-40 levels of recursion (sic!). And this is hardly possible to handle and select what to build first.

I thought of writing a my own script using python-apt+graph, but may be it would be possible with your script.

Thank you.

P.S. Just realized that it won't be possible to get/show more than a first level of the dependencies until we build first packages and put them in our local repository (just because apt-cache knows nothing about Deps/BuildDeps of these packages until we put them in the apt cache).
The only useful way is to support two repositories: from the fist one we take all the dependencies (official Debian repo where all the packages already exist), from the second one we just check the existence of the packages (our local repo) and decide what we have to build.

But that would be too custom script, not general-purpose.

[MestreLion]

Glad to find you here! I'm really fond of apt-tree, it's a small but really nice and useful script, has saved me quite a few times.

Just a heads-up: I'll most likely not be able to dive into this for the next few months, but I'm glad we settled on what seems a great "roadmap", it outlines how each feature can be implemented and can guide PRs for those if you (or anyone else) is willing to contribute.

The only useful way is to support two repositories: from the fist one we take all the dependencies (official Debian repo where all the packages already exist), from the second one we just check the existence of the packages (our local repo) and decide what we have to build.

But that would be too custom script, not general-purpose.

In the usual use case, I guess, people will have both the OS repositories and the local one, made aware to apt via /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.[list|sources]. So all packages, local and distro, will be in the apt cache after apt update

When I first read about "marking missing packages" I might have misunderstood that as "mark packages not installed in the system", not as "mark packages not available in any of the repos known by apt in this system".

The latter, which I now think it's what you want, might be possible to implement tricking apt-rdepends to an alternate /etc/apt (and/or /var/apt) via custom config file, env vars or some -o ... cmdline options which apt surely has and apt-rdepends most likely honors. We just have to figure which options it requires for that.

It might be a narrow use-case, but I wouldn't oppose adding the ability to apt-tree to set custom apt options, maybe as all arguments after -- are forwarded to apt-rdepends, that would be general-purpose enough I guess. And maybe a note in the examples or --help on how to use that feature for your case.

That said, I'm not sure I understand why would you need your local repository to be entirely self-contained, and build yourself dependencies that are available in the base distribution repositories. Usually local repos (and PPAs, and VPS hosting caches) contain only the in-house and custom packages, and rely on the client's base distro repos availability to pull any required deps. Do you expect (or require) your clients to be isolated/offline?