Issue on installing directly virtual packages

[helixarch]

apacman fails to install directly a virtual package. For example, for virtual package "firebug" apacman gives error:

apacman -S firebug Package `firebug' does not exist.

while pacman understands which package provides this virtual package and installs that package without errors:

pacman -S firebug resolving dependencies... looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) firefox-firebug-2.0.8-1

Total Download Size: 1.22 MiB Total Installed Size: 9.27 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

[oshazard]

I thought there was a bug in the providedinpacman function, so I spent awhile working up a way to scrape the repository DBs directly ...

# Alternative to providedinpacman function
existsinpacmandb() {
  unset virtual virtnum
  pacmandb='/var/lib/pacman/sync'
  for repo in $(ls $pacmandb/*.db 2>/dev/null); do 
    dbresults=$(tar -xOf $repo | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/%NAME%\n/%NAME% :: /g')
    dbresults=$(echo "$dbresults" | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/%PROVIDES%\n/%PROVIDES% :: /g')
    dbresults=$(echo "$dbresults" | grep -E "(%NAME%|%PROVIDES%)")
    dbresults=$(echo "$dbresults" | awk -v pkg=$1 '$0 == "%PROVIDES% :: " pkg {print x}; {x=$0}')
    dbresults=$(echo "$dbresults" | awk '{print $NF}')
    for pkg in $dbresults; do
      virtual+=($pkg)
    done
  done;
  [[ $virtual ]] && selectprovider $1 "${virtual[@]}"
}

Anyway, turns out it was something else which was an easy fix. However, I noticed that pacman does not prompt to pick when there are multiple options to provide a virtual package, so I spent time working on that.

I'm currently doing regression testing but looks like I have it working now (and perhaps better than with pacman alone) for v2.3 which will be up soon!

# pacman -S ttf-font
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Package (1)               Old Version  New Version  Net Change  Download Size
extra/ttf-bitstream-vera  1.10-10      1.10-10        0.00 MiB       0.21 MiB

Total Download Size:   0.21 MiB
Total Installed Size:  0.58 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:      0.00 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

vs

# apacman -S ttf-font
:: There are 8 packages that provide ttf-font:
1) ttf-bitstream-vera
2) ttf-dejavu
3) ttf-freefont
4) ttf-linux-libertine
5) ttf-oxygen
6) ttf-droid
7) ttf-liberation
8) ttf-ubuntu-font-family

Enter a selection (default=1): 6
Pacman Targets    (1): ttf-droid

resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Package (1)          Old Version  New Version  Net Change  Download Size
community/ttf-droid  20121017-4   20121017-4     0.00 MiB       3.53 MiB

Total Download Size:    3.53 MiB
Total Installed Size:  15.31 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:       0.00 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]

(P.S. It does not prompt the user for firebug --> firefox-firebug because there is only one package provider in the official repos)

[oshazard]

Fixed in v2.3 (@1fcbecdc5af210465a9f7bd88f95b6ab2b2e0052)