[plug] RPM requires/provides question

[John Clayton]

provides refers to the direct functionality that a package provides. Eg a 
package provides software atoz. Now this program atoz is a refinement and 
generalisation of many historical programs ie abc def ghi jkl etc All of the 
functionality of these programs can be gotten from atoz through calling 
options such as command line arguments. You would then have all the entries 
for abc def ghi jkl etc programs but they woud just be links to atoz with 
different calling options. Now the atoz package does not provide the abc def 
ghi jkl etc programs themselves but when you ask these entries what package 
is providing this functionality with the whatprovides clause the result will 
be the atoz package.


>From: Derek Fountain <derekfountain at yahoo.co.uk>
>Reply-To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
>To: plug at plug.linux.org.au
>Subject: [plug] RPM requires/provides question
>Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 21:21:52 +0800
>
>I tried the following on the SuSE list, but got no response. Perhaps some 
>RPM
>expert on here can help...?
>
>In a desperate attempt to squeeze a little more diskspace for my choked 
>server
>I wrote a script which examines all the packages on the box to see which 
>ones
>aren't required by any others. I figured these "top leaves" can be removed 
>if
>I know I'm not using them.
>
>The script basically does a "rpm -q --provides" for a package, then for 
>each
>provided capability, it does a "rpm -q --whatrequires". The packages which
>provides capabilities which aren't required by anything else are the ones I
>want.
>
>During this process I came across tcsh, which I don't use. It doesn't 
>provide
>much:
>
> > rpm -q --provides tcsh
>tcsh
>
>and nothing uses that:
>
> > rpm -q --whatrequires tcsh
>no package requires tcsh
>
>Ha! 2MB to be saved here! But:
>
># rpm --erase tcsh
>error: removing these packages would break dependencies:
>         /bin/csh is needed by transfig-3.2.3d-219
>         /bin/csh is needed by samba-2.2.5-124
>
>Oh. A check confirms:
>
> > rpm -q --whatprovides /bin/csh
>tcsh-6.12.00-40
>
>Now I'm confused. The "--provides" operation on tcsh doesn't say it 
>provides
>"/bin/csh", but the "--whatprovides" operation on the file says it does.
>
>Why the inconsistency? I'm no expert on RPM. What have I misunderstood?
>
>--
> > eatapple
>core dump
>

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