N?? / show marks the upstream candidate with "*" instead of ">" (the
prompt, which read as a command in logs), and every line but the note
gets a two-character gutter: " " for the installed record, "* " for the
candidate, so keys and colons line up. The plain native fallback (zypper,
unmergeable records) and the not-installed candidate use the same gutter.
pacman records (-Qi with -Si or the AUR helper's -Sia) are now compared
the way they are meant:
- values unwrapped (continuation lines joined, runs of blanks as one):
yay wraps Depends On / Optional Deps at 80 columns even without a
terminal unless COLUMNS=0, which the helper now gets for -Qua and -Sia
- Depends On, Provides, Conflicts With, Make/Check Deps and the other
lists as sets of exact tokens in any order (a constraint is a change)
- Optional Deps by package names ("name: description [installed]" in
-Qi, bare names from the AUR)
- a differing value is one line like -Qi, Optional Deps one entry per
line; candidate-only fields sit next to their counterpart (Repository
after Version, AUR URL after URL, Maintainer after Packager, ...)
Verified on recorded claude-desktop records (paru 2.1.0, yay 13.0.1, the
installed 2.9939.4-1 from the AUR's own .SRCINFO); discovery/pacman.md
section 15.2.
On the pacman backend, an installed AUR helper (paru, else yay;
--aur-helper=paru|yay|none, --no-aur) adds the AUR updates to the review
list. The helper never runs as root: when the tool is root through sudo it
runs as SUDO_USER (runuser -u, else sudo -u, with that user's HOME, from
that home); unprivileged it runs as is; a root login gets no AUR, with a
warning. The banner names the helper ("+ AUR via paru").
- listing: <helper> -Qua (also with --no-refresh), rows with repository
"aur"; [ignored] is shown [held]; a failing -Qua warns and the session
goes on with the repository rows
- every row has a marker column after the number: "*" for AUR rows, a
space otherwise (on every backend)
- N?? merges pacman -Qi with <helper> -Sia; N?, N+, Nx stay with pacman;
N- excludes through the helper's --ignore
- <enter>: the repository step exactly as before, then <helper> -Sua
--ignore <excluded> as the invoking user (--noconfirm only when stdin is
not a terminal); pacman is skipped when only AUR rows are left; a helper
failure is reported and its status returned; --dry-run prints it
- other backends never run a helper; --aur-helper is ignored with a warning
paru 2.1.0 and yay 13.0.1 formats verified in discovery/pacman.md section
15 (proof: discovery/pacman/aur.sh). Unit tests replay the recorded output
(fake paru, yay, runuser, getent); the archlinux E2E run installs the
foreign su-dummy-aur and drives a fake paru through a fake sudo built on
passwordless su for wheel.
N?? and `show PKG` now print the installed record in the package
manager's own key/value layout, after one line explaining the format:
# lines starting with > come from the upstream candidate: a differing
value, or a field the installed record lacks
After each field whose candidate value differs comes the candidate's
line prefixed with "> "; fields only the candidate has are appended the
same way; installed-only fields stay; identical fields print once.
Multi-line values (pacman Optional Deps, dnf Description, RFC-822
continuation lines) are compared as blocks and a differing candidate
block gets "> " on every line. A package that is not installed shows the
candidate alone ("# not installed: this is the upstream candidate").
Merged where the backend gives comparable records for both sides:
- pacman: -Qi vs -Si REPO/PKG, REPO = the first repository -Sl lists
- apt: dpkg-query -s (Status, Conffiles, the long description; richer
than apt-cache show PKG=<installed>, which gives the archive record
when that version is still listed) vs apt-cache show --no-all-versions;
Description-xx pairs with Description and a one-line candidate
Description equal to the installed first line counts as identical
(the archives ship the long text in Translation files)
- dnf: info --installed vs info --upgrades (--available lists other
architectures first and nothing for an up-to-date package); not
installed: --available; dnf5's differently padded keys are re-padded
zypper keeps `zypper info --requires`: rpm -qi and zypper info share
almost no keys and zypper cannot print the installed record itself.
No candidate, or not exactly one record per side, keeps the old output.
Formats verified in containers and recorded in discovery/*.md. Unit
tests replay recorded pacman, apt, dnf4 and dnf5 records; the E2E suite
checks 2?? on su-dummy-b on all 12 distros.
bryanpedini