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List:       busybox
Subject:    [BusyBox] Re: Archiveyness.
From:       Rob Landley <rob () landley ! net>
Date:       2004-12-17 4:20:06
Message-ID: 200412162320.07023.rob () landley ! net
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On Wednesday 15 December 2004 05:21 pm, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:29:33 -0500
>
> Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote:
> > Okay, I want to add cpio create ability in order to make kernel
> > initramfs images, and while I'm there I might as well add cramfs and
> > mkisofs and maybe eventually even genext2fs since they're basically
> > all archives of one form or another.
> >
> > I'm wandering through the current archive creation/extraction helper
> > code and it's a bit of a mess.  I'd expected tree traversal and
> > filtering code (presumably shared with "find" for archive create) with
> > callbacks into the specific archiver to go "here's a file, add it to
> > your archive" or vice versa, but that doesn't quite appear to be the
> > case.
> >
> > Currently from a really quick glance, the only archiver in the tree I
> > noticed having the ability to create files is tar.  Several can
> > extract: tar, ar, cpio, rpm, and deb that I've noticed.  I don't
> > expect there's any sort of documentation on the shared unpacking
> > infrastructure...? :)
>
> The next stage of the common unarchiving code was to extend it to
> archiving code as well, but i did get that far.

I'm assuming you mean you didn't get that far, therefore I'd be free to whack 
on it? :)

> As for documentation, there may be a few comments scatered here and
> there, but nothing outside of the code, sorry.
>
> > First question:
> >
> > What is the relationship between dpkg and dpkg_deb?  (These are the
> > only users of filter_accept_list_reassign...)  I was under the vague
> > impression that they weren't used anymore.  I do a cleanup that winds
> > up breaking them, is anybody particularly likely to care?
>
> dpkg-deb mainly deals with a .deb's data, doesnt have much to do with
> its metadata, its commonly used to unpack (rather than install) a deb.
> dpkg checks the packages metadata to check dependencies, registers the
> package as being installed on the system.
>
> Functionally dpkg-deb is more complete than dpkg in busybox, but as
> dpkg-deb is simpler, it could probably be replaced by a shell script.
>
> There has been talk of removing dpkg, a couple of people came out in
> support of keeping it (i wasnt one of them).
>
> I would consider that the benefits from having common archive creation
> and extraction code would outweigh the negative impact from the loss of
> dpkg/dpkg-deb.

Hmmm...  I had big grandiose plans since I'd finally caught up on all the 
stuff that had piled up while I was busy with Linucon, but then all of the 
sudden I got a new day job on monday, and started on tuesday.  (I are now a 
contractor doing Linux software for Dell.  I got to meet Matt Domsch, he 
works three rows over.)

This is going to impact my free time, but probably not as much as Linucon did.  
(Hey, I did the bunzip rewrite while taking 15 credits of graduate school...)

> Glenn

Rob
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