[packagekit] Synchronous Python interface

[Ken VanDine]

It is so great to see application integration with PackageKit!  I know
i have considered utilizing jockey in Foresight.  Cross-distro tools
FTW.  How far along are you?

--Ken


On 7/8/08, Martin Pitt <martin.pitt at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>  in my current driver search/UI project "Jockey" [1] I want to provide
>  a sensible upstream implementation for package query/install/remove
>  methods, so I started intregrating PackageKit support (since it now
>  works on Ubuntu Intrepid).
>
>  The raw D-BUS interface is slightly inconvenient to use for me, since
>  it is fully asynchronous. For my purposes (package installation etc.
>  happens in the jockey backend, frontends communicate with it through
>  the system D-BUS), this is pretty redundant to me, since D-BUS already
>  provides asynchronous method calls, and otherwise the Jockey backend
>  is using a synchronous style.
>
>  Thus I went ahead and created a fairly easy Python class for calling
>  the most common PackageKit functions from a Python program,
>  including some demo code.
>
>  The usage is fairly simple:
>
>     pk = PackageKitClient()
>
>     print pk.Resolve('none', 'pmount')
>     # [(False, 'pmount;0.9.17-2;amd64;Ubuntu', 'mount removable devices as normal user')]
>
>     print pk.GetDetails('installation-guide-powerpc;20080520ubuntu1;all;Ubuntu')
>     # ('unknown', 'unknown', 'This package contains the Ubuntu installation guide \
>     # for the PowerPC architecture, in a variety of languages.\nA shorter reference, \
>     # the installation HOWTO, is included in an appendix. ', ", 1074334)
>
>     def cb(status, percent, subpercent, elapsed, remaining, cancel_allowed):
>         print 'install pkg: %s, %i%%, cancel allowed: %s' % (status, percent, str(cancel_allowed))
>         return True # return False to cancel
>     pk.InstallPackages(['pmount;0.9.17-2;i386;Ubuntu', 'quilt;0.46-6;all;Ubuntu'], cb)
>
>  As usual in Python, errors are represented as exceptions.
>
>  It's not a complete binding yet, so far just a "WorksForMe" thing.
>  However, it might be useful for other people as well.
>
>  I welcome any suggestions how to improve it, or LARTing why
>  asynchronous APIs are better :-P
>
>  Martin
>
>  [1] http://launchpad.net/jockey
>
>
>  --
>  Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
>  Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)
>
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-- 
Ken VanDine
http://ken.vandine.org