what next for the pkg_install rewrite

[Ivan Voras]

On 19/08/2010, jhell <jhell at dataix.net> wrote:
> 	Adding to this I would like to see a central database created for
> packages that have been removed like in Slackware Linux. They keep a
> file in /var/log/preserved_packages with a flat text format with the
> file name looking like:
>
> ${PORTNAME}-${PORTVERSION}${PORTREVISION}-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`

Ah yes, you reminded me of this other thing: I would also suggest
getting rid of text files carrying rich information in ad-hoc formats
:)

I'm not saying XML should be the only choice, but it *is* well
supported - expat is even in base as libbsdxml.

While suggesting nebulous things I know will be hard to pass near a
lot of people: sqlite is *the* choice for any record-based file
databases today. The single most important thing I'll promote with it
is its transaction capabilities and ACID - these would get much use if
parallel operations (upgrades / installs) are to be supported. There
are a ton of other reasons too.

I started writing this a long time ago but abandoned it because of
strong opposition: http://wiki.freebsd.org/PortsUsingSQLite - maybe it
would help at this time.