Re: Back Again - RPM using a more efficient database format

To: "For users of Fedora" <fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 7:42 AM
Subject: Re: Back Again - RPM using a more efficient database format

Sam Varshavchik:

With a large repository, like Fedora, even a compressed XML file is
going to end up being rather huge. Then, you have to uncompress it
and
parse it. And, XML parsing is also not exactly a light task.

I was under the impression that part of the reason for using something
SQL based (see listing, below) was to do with it being faster to parse
than the rather free-for-all structure of an XML file.  Supposedly
being
able to use a pre-existing databasing technique, rather than a custom
job on this special XML?

Hello.

I think XML is practical, let's take a possible example (only an idea):

<package="{name}"
<version="{version}" />
<replace="{package}-{old-version}" />
<reqdep0="{package}-{version}" />
<reqdep1=[...] />
<optdep0="{package}-{version}" />
<optdep1=[...] />
</package>

[reqdep] stands for required dependency
[optdep] stands for optional dependency

Just a simple parse using DOM and using the right way the child elements
should solve everything.
Isn't it more practical and efficient rather than using a SQL based
database?

Regards,