A python implementation of pacman -Rs for groups

Question

I've created a simple python script which implements the pacman -Rs feature for package groups.
Here's the code:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Copyright (C) 2005 Shahar Weiss <[email protected]>
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
# This script is a wrap for pacman which allows for removing package groups using the -Rs flag.
# It works by checking which packages of the group were explicitly installed and makes sure these packages are not
# needed by any other out-of-group packages. It then uses pacman and it's -Rs feature to remove the remaining packages
# in the list.
# Version 0.0.4
import os, sys
def returnIndex(_list, _string):
"""Returns the index in _list which contains _string, returns -1 is _string was not found"""
for i in range(len(_list)):
if _list[i].find(_string)!=-1:
return i
return -1
def removeRequiredForOtherPackages(packageList):
"""Returns a list of all the packages which are not required for other packages meant for removal."""
tempList = packageList[:]
for i in range(len(packageList)):
Output = os.popen('pacman -Qi ' + packageList[i]).readlines()
startIndex = returnIndex(Output, 'Required By')
stopIndex = returnIndex(Output, 'Conflicts With')
requiredList = Output[startIndex:stopIndex]
tempReqList = requiredList[0].split(' ')
for j in range(1,len(requiredList)):
tempReqList.extend( requiredList[j].split(' '))
requiredList = tempReqList[:]
# Cleans requiredList from unneeded strings
removeAllStrings(requiredList, '')
removeAllStrings(requiredList, 'n')
requiredList = requiredList[3:]
if requiredList==['Nonen']:
continue
else:
for j in range(len(requiredList)):
# if there are packages who require the current package, check if they are enlisted for removal.
# if not, then remove the current package from the list
if requiredList[j] not in tempList:
tempList.remove( packageList[i] )
break
return tempList
def removeNonExplicit(packageList):
"""Returns a list of all the packages which were explicitly installed."""
# Creating a temporary list because removing an element from the original list instead
# might cause us going out of bounds in the loop.
tempList = packageList[:]
for i in range(len(packageList)):
packageInfoString = os.popen('pacman -Qi ' + packageList[i]).readlines()[11]
# if the package was not explicitly installed, remove it from the list
if packageInfoString.find('explicitly installed')==-1:
tempList.remove(packageList[i])
return tempList
def removeAllStrings(_list, _string):
"""Removes all instances of given _string from _list"""
while _string in _list:
_list.remove(_string)
def getGroupPackages(group_name):
"""Returns a list of the packages contained by a certain group"""
tempList = os.popen('pacman -Qg ' + group_name + ' 2>/dev/null').readlines()
# if there's no such group, quit.
if tempList==['n']:
print "No such group exists."
sys.exit(1)
packageList = []
for i in range(len(tempList)):
# Each element in tempList contains a string in the form of 'group packagen'.
# The parsing we do adds only the 'package' part to packageList.
packageList.append( tempList[i].split(' ')[1].split('n')[0] )
return packageList
def main(args):
if os.getuid()!=0:
print "This program should be run as root."
sys.exit(1)
if len(args)==1:
print "You did not provide a group for removal."
sys.exit(1)
packagesToRemove = getGroupPackages(args[-1])
packagesToRemove = removeNonExplicit(packagesToRemove)
packagesToRemove = removeRequiredForOtherPackages(packagesToRemove)
if packagesToRemove==[]:
print "No package was marked for removal."
sys.exit(1)
packageRemoveString=''
for i in range(len(packagesToRemove)):
packageRemoveString += packagesToRemove[i] + ' '
os.system('pacman -Rs ' + packageRemoveString)
if __name__=="__main__":
main(sys.argv)
Hope you like it and that it works well.
Enjoy.

Answer 1

If you like, you could put this in the scripts section of the wiki:
http://wiki2.archlinux.org/index.php/Scripts
Dusty