upgrade and install in the same transaction?

[Greg_Swift at aotx.uscourts.gov]

>
> We want to be able to install a large set of rpm's which may or may
> not have dependency on each other.  We would like to be able to
> install them all in one shot so that the dependency check and
> ordering can be done.  However, some of the packages should be
> 'Upgraded' while others 'installed'.
>
> I am not so familiar with rpm, but it looks like the CLI as it is
> won't allow 'U' and 'i' on a per package basis in a single
> transaction.  Looking at the rpm API seems to be no such restriction.
>
> I'm willing to modify the rpm CLI to allow this use case, but if I
> do so I would like to know the chances of getting such
> an enhancement merged into the official release?  I can work with
> whoever is interested in defining the command line interface (I'm
> thinking using a file format like: <full path to
> package><delim><'i'|'U'|'e'><delim><any other package specific flags
> that make sense>  Then just adding an option to the rpm CLI to take the
file.

Unless the ones you need to -i are special like the kernel package, you can
just use -U on all of them.  Unlike yum, rpm will just install a package if
you use the -U flag on it and there is nothing to upgrade.

-greg