opkg info hides some field of installed packages

[Falk Werner]

Hello,

I've investigated that opkg info behaves differently when used with an ipk file or an already installed package: When used with already installed packages, some fields (e.g. Section, Description) are missing.

(Details are provided below. IPK file for testing is attached.)

It seems that this behavior is intended. I'm just curious why these fields are missing, when the package is installed. Since the control file is copied to /var/lib/opkg/info directory, the information still exists.

The fields are also missing, when they are quieried exlicitly using the --fields option.

My use case is to provide some kind of graphical frontend to opkg. I Intended to group installed packages by their section and to provide the package description to the user. Therefore, I was wondering why these fields are missing.

I don't want to change the current behavior, I just want to understand the decision.

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards

Falk Werner

> opkg --version

opkg version 0.4.0

> opkg info test_1.0.0_armhf.ipk 

Package: test

Version: 1.0.0

Status: unknown ok not-installed

Section: base

Architecture: armhf

Maintainer: "Falk Werner"

Source: http://www.example.org/

Description: missing

Installed-Size: 1

>  opkg info test                 

Package: test

Version: 1.0.0

Status: install user installed

Architecture: armhf

Installed-Size: 1

Installed-Time: 1595125812

> opkg info --fields Version,Section test

Package: test

Version: 1.0.0

> cat /var/lib/opkg/info/test.control 

Package: test

Priority: optional

Version: 1.0.0

Section:  base

Architecture: armhf

Maintainer: "Falk Werner"

Installed-Size: 1

Depends:

Source: http://www.example.org/

Description: missing

[Alejandro del Castillo]

On 11/3/20 10:14 AM, Falk Werner wrote:
> Hello,

Hi Falk,

> I've investigated that /opkg info/ behaves differently when used with an

> ipk file or an already installed package: When used with already
> installed packages, some fields (e.g. Section, Description) are missing.

> /(Details are provided below. IPK file for testing is attached.)/

>
> It seems that this behavior is intended. I'm just curious why these
> fields are missing, when the package is installed. Since the control
> file is copied to /var/lib/opkg/info directory, the information still
> exists.
> The fields are also missing, when they are quieried exlicitly using the

> /--fields/ option.

Yep, the behavior is intended. I believe the rationale was to save
space, by only adding the most important fields to the status file.

However, there is an option to override that behavior, by adding to your
conf:

option verbose_status_file 1

I just realized this option was never documented, apologies. Will submit
a patch soon to add documentation for this option, probably will check
if there are other non documented options too....

> My use case is to provide some kind of graphical frontend to opkg. I
> Intended to group installed packages by their section and to provide the
> package description to the user. Therefore, I was wondering why these
> fields are missing.

verbose_status_file should get you going

> I don't want to change the current behavior, I just want to understand
> the decision.

[1] commit 9e965c23b1b8adfcf38059c9f32319a2dbd85f15

--
Cheers,

Alejandro

[Falk Werner]

Hi Alejandro,

this option is exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks a lot!

Kind regards

Falk