The Idea

Currently optdepends in pacman serve no purpose other than informational. It would be good to "improve" this somewhat.

Current Situation

example package with optdepends

> pacman -S python
Optional dependencies for python
    tk: for IDLE, pynche and modulator
> pacman -Qi python
Optional Deps : tk: for IDLE, pynche and modulator

How to improve?

Everything marked with [done] is implemented in the optdep branch of this repo, but probably won't land in pacman before 4.1. Please note that this branch is frequently rebased onto (pacman upstream) master, to keep it up to date.

pacman recognises installed optdepends [done]

> pacman -S --asdep tk
> pacman -Qi python
Optional Deps : tk: for IDLE, pynche and modulator [installed]
> pacman -Qi tk
Required By: python (optional)

information about optdepends is not output if an optdepends package is installed [done]

> pacman -S tk
> pacman -S python
(no optional dependencies notification output)

this is also smart when installing both at the same time and does the right thing [done]

information is shown if an option is set in pacman.conf [done]

> pacman -S tk
> pacman -S python
Optional Deps : tk: for IDLE, pynche and modulator [installed]

optdepends are not orphans unless a flag is specified [done]

> pacman -Qtd
> pacman -Qtd --optdep
tk 8.5.6-1 (optdepend for python)

packages which are only optrequired get a nonfatal warning when trying to remove them [done]

> pacman -R tk
checking dependencies...
:: python: optionally requires tk (for IDLE, pynche and modulator)

Remove (1): tk-8.5.10-1

optdepends can be removed with -Rs [done]

> pacman -Rs python
Remove (2): python-2.6.1-1  tk-8.5.6-1

optdeps are not recursively removed if there is still a package needing them [done]

Suppose tk, python and git are installed. python and git optdepend on tk.

> pacman -Rs git
checking dependencies...

Remove (1): git-1.7.6-1

> pacman -Rs git python
checking dependencies...

Remove (3): git-1.7.6-1 python-3.2.1-1 tk-8.5.10-1

Note that this only affects automatic recursion, optdepends can still manually be removed (see above)

if a flag is given, optdeps are recursively removed even if there is still a package needing them [done]

Suppose tk, python and git are installed. python and git optdepend on tk.

> pacman -Rs --optdeps git
checking dependencies...
:: python: optionally requires tk (for IDLE, pynche and modulator)

Remove (2): git-1.7.6-1 tk-8.5.10-1

Other Ideas

A flag/configuration option to install a packages optdepends by default [done]
Add option to tell pacman if you want it to ask you about installing each single optdepend [done]
Add option to tell pacman to list optdepends even when installed and indicate install status of each [done]