Filters

Search filtering on the name is done in the backend for efficiency reasons. This can be added into the compiled backend if this is not possible in any new backend design.

Filter options are:

Option Description
installed or ~installed If the package is currently installed. Packages returned with the ~installed filter set are available in remote software sources.
devel or ~devel Development packages are typically not required for normal operation and typically have the suffixes -devel, -dgb and -static.
gui or ~gui GUI programs typically depend on gtk, libkde or libxfce.
application or ~application Packages that provide desktop files and are probably applications.
free or ~free Free software. The package contains only software and other content that is available under a free license. See the Fedora wiki for a list of licenses that are considered free. If a license cannot be determined from the package metadata, or the status of the license is not known, the package will be marked as 'non-free'.
visible or ~visible Repositories may want to specify if a package should be visible in an application chooser. This is only really useful for embedded environments where the package list is manually chosen.
supported or ~supported If the package is supported by the distribution or retailer or is a unsupported third party package.
basename or ~basename The basename filter will only return results according to the package basename. This is useful if you are searching for pm-utils and you only want to show the main pm-utils package, not any of the -devel or -debuginfo or -common suffixes in the UI. The basename is normally the original name of the source package.
newest or ~newest

The newest filter will only return the newest package available. This is useful if you are searching for gimp and only gimp-2.4.5-1.fc9.i386 would be returned, not gimp-2.4.5-1.fc9.i386, gimp-2.4.4-1.fc9.i386 and gimp-2.4.3-1.fc9.i386.

NOTE: The newest filter processes installed and available package lists separately and so the installed or ~installed filter also has to be specified if only one type of results are required. There is no way to do a newest filter across both installed and available packages.

arch or ~arch The arch filter will only return the packages that match the exact architecture of the system, for instance only showing x86_64 packages on a AMD Turion 64. This would mean that x86_64 packages could be filtered from non-native 32-bit packages. This allows the used to choose non-native packages if a multi-lib policy is allowed.
source or ~source The source filter will only return source packages. These are typically useful when rebuilding other packages.

So valid options would be:

Option Description
none All packages installed or available with no filtering
devel;~installed All non-installed development packages
installed;~devel All installed non-development packages
gui;~installed;~devel All non-installed, non-devel gui programs

Removing installed versions in search results

When outputting a list of packages, it's important to remove the available package if the same version is installed. This is required, as the user may do SearchName("kernel",filter="none") and only want to return results that can be operated on. For instance, suppose we have installed:

kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (installed)
kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (installed)

And in the remote software sources we have:

kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (fedora)
kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (fedora-updates)
kernel-2.6.30.1-203 (fedora-updates)

If we do Resolve("kernel",filter="none") we should expect:

kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (installed)
kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (installed)
kernel-2.6.30.1-203 (fedora-updates)

If the kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (fedora) result was returned, this will be in the list of results, and is a valid install target. The user will get very confused why 2.6.29.4-167 is both installed and not installed.

Filter examples

Suppose we have installed:

kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (installed)
kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (installed)

In the remote software sources we have:

kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (fedora)
kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (fedora-updates)
kernel-2.6.30.1-203 (fedora-updates)

If we do Resolve("kernel",filter="none") we should expect:

kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (installed)
kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (installed)
kernel-2.6.30.1-203 (fedora-updates)

If we do Resolve("kernel",filter="installed") we should expect:

kernel-2.6.29.4-167 (installed)
kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (installed)

If we do Resolve("kernel",filter="~installed") we should expect:

kernel-2.6.30.1-203 (fedora-updates)

If we do Resolve("kernel",filter="newest;installed") we should expect:

kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (installed)

If we do Resolve("kernel",filter="newest") we should expect:

kernel-2.6.29.5-191 (installed)
kernel-2.6.30.1-203 (fedora-updates)