2 Command Line Interface

The command line interface of ozpm can create packages, install or uninstall them and display miscelaneous informations. Note that packages can't be created by the graphical interface of ozpm. This interface is particularly suited for creating batch files for complex operations.

The avalaible command lines are :

2.1 Package creation

An ozpm package file is a compressed file containing :

The creation of a package involves specifying a text file containing the informations about the package (--in parameter), a subdirectory containing all files of the package (--prefix parameter) and the package file name (--out parameter).

The package description text file must be formatted as follow :

The package description text file can contain any parameter definition you might see fit, however there is a set of parameters are strictly required.

The set of parameters that are used by ozpm are :

2.2 Easy way of creating packages with ozskel and mogul

The best way to provide modules in Oz is to make them avalaible through URLs. This way anybody in the world connected to the internet can use it. Oz users can place these modules in their local Oz cache preventing the necessary download. The most efficient way of providing binary modules is to provide them ready to install in the user's local Oz cache. Using Mogul and ozpm, this is an easy task :

It is strongly recommended to use both these tools while creating binary packages.

If you have a mogul entry for your package and create an ozpm binary package for it, make it available in the mogul entry (use the url-pkg parameter). In such a case, the graphical user interface of ozpm will be able to directly install the binary package. Note that the ozpm binary package must have the .pkg extension.

2.3 Example

A user Toto that has the mogul id mogul:/toto created a package named dog and want to make it available to other users. He has access to a web site named www.toto.com where he decided to drop the mogul and package files along with the module file.

Toto has defined the mogul entry for the dog package like that :

id          :mogul:/toto/dog
url-pkg     :http://www.toto.com/dog.tar.Z
url-pkg     :http://www.toto.com/dog.pkg
author      :mogul:/toto/toto
provides    :http://www.toto.com/Dog.ozf
content-type:text/html
blurb       :A simple dog
 
This very nice dog can easily attack intruders and protect your home.

This entry was saved to the file named dogentry. Using oskel, Toto runs make zip to create a ozskel_tempdir containing a dictory named toto-dog. Toto can now create the dog.pkg file by the command :

ozpm --create --in dogentry --prefix ozskel_tempdir/toto-dog/ --out dog.pkg

Placing dogentry and dog.pkg onto his web server, Toto has successfully made his binary package available for all other users.


Deny Duchier and Donatien Grolaux
Version 1.1.1 (20000613)