[sbopkg-users] Installed packages and queue files

[Pierre Cazenave]

Chess Griffin wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Pierre Cazenave<pwcazenave at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but I've noticed that if I
>> use a queue file to build a package and its dependencies, then all the
>> packages listed in the queue file will be built, irrespective of whether
>> they're already installed. A useful option would be to have sbopkg skip
>> building those files that are already installed, thus reducing build times
>> considerably. This way, a centrally distributed queue file (like those in
>> /var/lib/sbopkg/queues) wouldn't build packages already installed on a
>> user's system.
>>
> 
> This has come up before.  The only difficulty is that this option
> really could not do a simple check of whether the package in the queue
> is installed.  To do it right, it would essentially first have to
> determine whether a package in the queue is installed and then also
> determine whether there is an update to that package.  If the package
> passed both checks -- meaning the package is installed and there is no
> update -- then conceivably it could be skipped (or the user given the
> option to skip).  Overall, this would probably slow down the queue
> processing at the outset.  This is not an insurmountable problem, but
> still it is something to consider.
> 
> I agree that it would be helpful, though.
> 

Perhaps having the default as it is at the moment, so that there's no 
increase in time for the standard behaviour, but having a flag like 
--check-installed could then trigger the slower checks for installed 
packages? This way a casual-ish user would have the current experience, 
but if you wanted to avoid the possibility of having to rebuild packages 
you've already installed, it'd be available as an option.

Of course, you can just comment out the installed packages from the 
queue file, but I don't always remember everything that's installed on 
my system!

I also don't think it'd necessarily have to check for updates to the 
currently installed packages, as that's more a job for the dedicated 
update option in sbopkg.

Pierre