reprepro 4.1.0 and new Packages.diff generation

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:43:47 +0100
callfortesters

I've just released reprepro 4.1.0 and uploaded it to unstable.

The most noteworthy change and the one where I need your help is that the included rredtool program can now generate Packages.diff/Index files when used as export-hook by reprepro. (Until now you had to use the included tiffany.py script, which is a fork of the script the official Debian archives use. That script is still included in case you prefer the old method).

So instead of

DscIndices: Sources Release . .gz tiffany.py
DebIndices: Packages Release . .gz tiffany.py

you can now use

DscIndices: Sources Release . .gz /usr/bin/rredtool
DebIndices: Packages Release . .gz /usr/bin/rredtool

to get the new diff generator.

The new diff generator has am import difference to the old one: It merges patches so every client should only need to download and apply a single patch, and not multiple after each other, thus reducing the disadvantages of Packages.diff files a bit (and sometimes even reducing the amount of data to download considerably).

While reprepro and apt-get (due to carefully working around bugs/shortcomings of older versions of apt) seem to work, I don't know if there are other users of those files that could be surprised by that. If you know any I'd be glad if you could test them or tell me about them.