filelists.xml.gz in rpm-md repos

[Anders F Björklund]

Christian Morales Vega wrote:

> When downloading metadata from rpm-md repositories Smart downloads the
> filelists.xml.gz file while libzypp doesn't.
> Is it really used in Smart? It can easily be the biggest file from all
> the metadata, so if the download could be avoided would be a big easy
> gain.

Filelists are needed for file dependencies (outside the ones
permitted in the primary.xml.gz, that is - e.g. the /usr/bin)
While file dependencies are rare (and illegal in some states)
they exist. Smart only creates the ones that are used, though.

However, the fetcher always downloads the "filelists" metadata
while it might not be needed (i.e. no such file dependencies)
Other depsolvers, such as Yum or ZYpp, only downloads it when
needed. Ditto with the "other" metadata, for the changelogs...

Having them loaded on-demand would be a nice future feature.
This also goes for populating the filelists and changelog.

--anders

PS. Download-size-wise, the .sqlite.bz2 format is smaller.