Yay: [Feature request] Show packages no longer required by any installed package

Created on 5 Dec 2019 · 5Comments · Source: Jguer/yay

Affected Version

yay v9.4.2 - libalpm v12.0.1

Feature request

Show newly orphaned packages after removing/updating packages like yaourt did.
It is very useful, because yay -Yc shows too much packages and it is difficult to spot new orphans. Also soon after package remove/upgrade the user can remove new orphans (or some of them).

Exmaple

After removing qtcreator the qbs, bzr, clazy packages are now orphaned and the user is informed about it.

$ yaourt -R qtcreator
checking dependencies...

Package (1)  Old Version  Net Change 

qtcreator    4.10.2-1     -107.69 MiB

Total Removed Size:  107.69 MiB

:: Do you want to remove these packages? [Y/n] 
:: Processing package changes...
(1/1) removing qtcreator                                                                                                                      [######################################################################################] 100%
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/4) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(2/4) Updating icon theme caches...
(3/4) Updating icon theme caches...
(4/4) Updating the desktop file MIME type cache...
==> Packages no longer required by any installed package:
    bzr clazy qbs
No database errors have been found!

Discussion Open Feature Request stale

Source

zaps166

Most helpful comment

The cleanest and most minimal solution is to configure a pacman PostTransaction hook to run on Install, Upgrade and Remove.

Run the steps using sudo

mkdir /etc/pacman.d/hooks
$EDITOR /etc/pacman.d/hooks/orphans.hook

and set the hook.

[Trigger]
Operation = Install
Operation = Upgrade
Operation = Remove
Type = Package
Target = *

[Action]
Description = Checking for orphaned packages...
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /bin/sh -c "/bin/pacman -Qtd | sed 's/^/    /' || exit 0"

zangornjak on 19 Dec 2019

👍3

All 5 comments

You could run yay -Qdt (or use pacman directly: pacman -Qdt) after you have removed a package, this will list all packages that were "installed as dependencies" AND are "not required by any package".

Or use yay -Rs (or pacman -Rs) when you remove a package, this removes the specified package(s) and "dependencies not required by other packages"

HorayNarea on 6 Dec 2019

I agree with @HorayNarea on this, if you want to remove only no longer required packages on uninstall, pacman->yay already has an option for that.

Jguer on 8 Dec 2019

Ok, I missed the pacman -Rs (thanks for that), but what about upgrade when package changes its dependencies? It is more convenient to get info after package install/removal than checking for orphans manually after upgrade like yay -Yc or yay -Qdtq. Your thoughts about this?

zaps166 on 8 Dec 2019

The cleanest and most minimal solution is to configure a pacman PostTransaction hook to run on Install, Upgrade and Remove.

Run the steps using sudo

mkdir /etc/pacman.d/hooks
$EDITOR /etc/pacman.d/hooks/orphans.hook

and set the hook.

[Trigger]
Operation = Install
Operation = Upgrade
Operation = Remove
Type = Package
Target = *

[Action]
Description = Checking for orphaned packages...
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /bin/sh -c "/bin/pacman -Qtd | sed 's/^/    /' || exit 0"

zangornjak on 19 Dec 2019

👍3

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.