[Rpm-ecosystem] rpm -q --whatrequires and rich deps

[James Antill]

On Mon, 2016-04-11 at 12:53 +0200, Michael Mraka wrote:

> And for the rest
> 
>      rpm -q --whatrequires E
>      rpm -q --whatrequires F
>      rpm -q --whatrequires G
>      rpm -q --whatrequires H
>      rpm -q --whatrequires I
> 
> it depends on which strategy we will agree. It's either "richdep" for
> loose one or for strict one it depends on current rpmdb status.
> 
> Here is couple of reasons why I'd prefer "loose" semantic:
> 
> - Currently if there is a package with broken dep A (e.g. installed with
>   rpm --nodeps) then --whatrequires A reports it.
> - Weak deps --whatsuggests, --whatrecommends, etc. As weak deps can naturally
>   be unsatisfied and that's correct, the answer for 
>     rpm --whatsuggests A
>   should report possible breakage not the currently installed packages.
> - And then there's dnf where 'dnf repoquery --whatrequires' also should report
>   all (possibly) broken packages.

 Here is why I'd suggest strict is better:

- User is almost always asking for information about the system, when
using rpm. And we are basically ignoring system state with loose.

- If the user wants "loose" then "repoquery --whatrequires" can provide
that information, so the user can see both bits of info.

- There should be another command that tells the user what they can do
to fix a system in --nodeps state (in yum we had "yum check", but I
think with the solver it could be much better).