Listmates,
I like to keep the current set of updated packages in
/var/cache/pacman/pkg but not have all of the older duplicates in there as
well. However, I don't want to delete the old packages either, in case I need
to downgrade a package. I simply want to move the older packages to a backup
location on a different partition so I'm not filling up / with several extra
gigabytes of older packages. To do this I adapted a script that I used to clean
duplicates from my local rpm repository and changed the script to deal with
package-name-v.e.r-arch.pkg.tar.gz instead of rpm-name-v.e.r-s.u.b-arch.rpm.
(Thankfully arch just uses the pkg directory instead of a nested spiderweb
under /var/cache/zypp/packages/.....)
The script for finding and moving older duplicate packages is named
fduppkg and is fairly self-explanitory. Running without arguments gives the
options:
23:33 supersff:~/scripts/file> fduppkg
Usage: <search dir> [ -d -l logfile -s -v ]
Searches <search dir> for duplicate pkgs and moves duplicate files to
[dup_dir]
or <search dir>/duplicates by default.
-d | --dupdir Used to specify directory to hold duplicate rpms
-l | --logfile Specify the log file name (default ./duplicates.log)
-s | --silent Don't output anything to stdout, just log results
-v | --verbose Output information showing which files are kept and not moved
You should note that the actual check for older/newer uses the file
modification date to make the decision rather than parsing the version number
digit-by-digit. So if you have done something nutty like moving all the
packages out of /var/cache and then copying them back so all the file
modification times are the same, this script won't work. (I could see it
happening) If you have a need for something like this, you can grab the script
at:
http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/scripts/fduppkg
Since the script if fairly generic for packages, if you have a number
of directories you want to operate on, you can just call the script from
another script that sets the command line inputs. Example:
http://www.3111skyline.com/download/Archlinux/scripts/fdup-archpkg
I generally just create a link to the script in /usr/local/bin so it is
in the search path. Also, if you just want to tear it apart for the bash
scripting learning, I have commented it so it is somewhat readable. Enjoy.
--
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: (936) 715-9333
Facsimile: (936) 715-9339
www.rankinlawfirm.com
