[packagekit] APT backend and xapian

[Tom Parker]

On 29/10/2007, Sebastian Heinlein <glatzor at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Michael Vogt thinks about implementing a hook infrastructure into
> libapt. This way we could perhaps use the apt-xapian-index work of Enrio
> Zini in the PackageKit backend to get a fast and powerfull search
> infrastructure.

Given that there have been a number of possible search implementations
proposed for the apt backend (plain apt, my sqlite work,
apt-xapian-index) it might be a good idea to provide some way to
switch between them at compile time.

Motivating things for this:
1) All of the options currently have downsides and upsides (slow
building of extra db's vs. slow searching choices; apt-xapian-index is
still a WIP; etc), and none of them really stand out as "the best" for
all at the moment.
2) Reducing the dependancies for those that don't want the extra
stuff. I'd consider this a minor point (1 is *much* more important),
but it's nice.

This would allow us to play around with the different search
mechanisms, and make it easy if someone comes up with a better one in
the future to plug that one in instead.

Theoretically, we may *eventually* want to decide on just one, but for
now I think that choice is good!

Tom