Passing --print-format argument results in yay exiting with 'target-not-found' error

[codeinred]

Affected Version

yay v11.1.2 - libalpm v13.0.1

Describe the bug

When --print-format is passed to yay when installing a package, yay will synchronize package databases before exiting with a 'target not found' error

Reproduction Steps

1. Find a AUR package (I selected scc)
2. Invoke yay with the package (eg, yay --print-format "%n %v" -Syu scc

Expected behavior

yay should ignore the --print-format argument and install the packages as necessary. It doesn't actually have to process it, or apply it, just ignore it (and whatever operand is provided to it)

The reason this is relevant is because the ansible pacman module always passes --print-format by default, and as far as I can tell, there's no way to disable this.

Output

{
	"aururl": "https://aur.archlinux.org",
	"buildDir": "/home/alecto/.cache/yay",
	"editor": "",
	"editorflags": "",
	"makepkgbin": "makepkg",
	"makepkgconf": "",
	"pacmanbin": "pacman",
	"pacmanconf": "/etc/pacman.conf",
	"redownload": "no",
	"rebuild": "no",
	"answerclean": "",
	"answerdiff": "",
	"answeredit": "",
	"answerupgrade": "",
	"gitbin": "git",
	"gpgbin": "gpg",
	"gpgflags": "",
	"mflags": "",
	"sortby": "votes",
	"searchby": "name-desc",
	"gitflags": "",
	"removemake": "ask",
	"sudobin": "sudo",
	"sudoflags": "",
	"requestsplitn": 150,
	"completionrefreshtime": 7,
	"bottomup": true,
	"sudoloop": false,
	"timeupdate": false,
	"devel": false,
	"cleanAfter": false,
	"provides": true,
	"pgpfetch": true,
	"upgrademenu": true,
	"cleanmenu": true,
	"diffmenu": true,
	"editmenu": false,
	"combinedupgrade": false,
	"useask": false,
	"batchinstall": false,
	"singlelineresults": false,
	"version": "11.1.2"
}

[Minei3oat]

No, the expected behavior is, that yay lists all packages matching the given arguments and exits. So simply ignoring the argument will lead to unexpected behavior, since requests with --print-format will never change things in pacman.

yay failes here, as it seems to forward the request to pacman, which won't find AUR packages:

yay/cmd.go

Lines 336 to 338 in 0fdfe79

	case cmdArgs.ExistsArg("p", "print", "print-format"):
	return config.Runtime.CmdBuilder.Show(config.Runtime.CmdBuilder.BuildPacmanCmd(ctx,
	cmdArgs, config.Runtime.Mode, settings.NoConfirm))

P.S.: community.general.pacman first creates an inventory with all installed/available packages, their versions and install reason for checking if changes are needed (with --print-format). Then all given packages are resolved (if not present in inventory, they are resolved with -S --print-format, so installed when --print-format is ignored, even when they should be removed/not updated). Later -S --print-format is used for building an install diff (Ignoring would lead to changes, even in check_mode). So just ignoring --print-format would break the module in multiple ways, but may solve your concrete issue.

[assapir]

Hey @Jguer - any updates regarding this? shouldn't it just pass the --print-format to pacman?

[Jguer]

@assapir this would require the option to be forwarded to install and install to do the gathering target process, print desired the format and then exit.

It should be doable but it's not as simple as just passing the argument (which is what's happening now which removes AUR support from it)

[ByJacob]

Any update on this topic?

[pythops]

this is blocking. I can't install AUR packages using ansible. Anyone has a suggestion for a workaround ?

[ByJacob]

- name: Check install packages
  ansible.builtin.command: pacman -Qm
  register: installed_packages

- name: "Install package"
  become: false
  ansible.builtin.command: "yay --noconfirm --noprogressbar --needed --sync {{ item }}"
  when: item not in installed_packages.stdout 
  with_items:
    - d2-bin

Only these must be packages with AUR only, as the condition will not work for packages that you can normally pacman install Ref.

[pythops]

Thanks, Yeah, there is always the command or shell plugin to use but I'm wondering if there is another workaround using pacman plugin