How to query package info from the server repo instead of local DB?

Question

Greetings!
Is there an option in pacman to query the package info ( like -Si ) from the server repo instead of the local package database? Or maybe some additional program is needed for this?
Update: Maybe this can be done by downloading a fresh copy of package DB with -Sy, but how to specify a custom package DB file? Is this accomplished with --dbpath option? Say
pacman -Sy --dbpath /tmp/tmpdb
Last edited by nbd (2015-06-07 18:44:23)

Answer 1

nbd wrote:
How could one interpret this?
[root@kw etc]# checkupdates | grep pcre
pcre
[root@kw etc]# pacman -Si pcre | grep Version
Version : 8.37-1
[root@kw etc]# pacman -Qi pcre | grep Version
Version : 8.37-1
[root@kw etc]#
Ok, after updating your original post and asking this question I understand what you are actually trying to do. The "local package database" generally refers to /var/lib/pacman/local, not /var/lib/pacman/sync, which is why it was unclear.
fakeroot pacman -Syb /tmp/tmpdb -i pcre
should do what you want, but be very careful never to install anything using that temporary database. Take a look at the checkupgrades script to see how it does things if you want to do more than just check remote package info.