`pkgx --update`

[felipecrs]

pkgx does not provide a way to update already cached pkgs.

For example:

# prune cache
$ rm -rf ~/.pkgx

# cache an old version
$ pkgx jq@1.6

# reuses the cached version
$ pkgx jq

# reuses the cached version
$ pkgx jq@1

Except that, if you pass @latest, then it will update the cached pkg:

# downloads a newer version, like 1.8
$ pkgx jq@latest

However, not always I want the actual latest version. Sometimes I just want the latest version within a range, like @1.

It would be great if the --update flag from v1 was brought back so that:

# prune cache
$ rm -rf ~/.pkgx

# cache an old version
$ pkgx jq@1.6

# reuses the cached version
$ pkgx jq@1

# finds and use the latest jq@1
$ pkgx --update jq@1

I would use this feature in my dotfiles script that updates everything in my system.

What do you think?

[jhheider]

The canonical way is pkgx mash upgrade jq:

https://github.com/pkgxdev/mash/
https://github.com/mxcl/mash/blob/main/scripts/upgrade.ts

[felipecrs]

The drawback is having to download a bunch of stuff just for this. 😅

[jhheider]

I can see that. mash requires bash and curl. upgrade.ts uses deno^1.

You could definitely rewrite it in a lighter language if needed, and self-host. pkgx tries to be respectful of space usage, but the expectation is that you'll grab stuff you need.

[felipecrs]

Yeah. I understand that.

I would just like to discuss whether it would be worth exposing this specific feature as a flag in pkgx, as opposed to an external program.

The feature is already implemented, but it's only usable through @latest.

In my opinion, this is a generic and simple enough feature that could be exposed in pkgx itself.

[jhheider]

It's certainly not a terrible idea. In general, features that treat pkgx like a systems package manager (pkgm for installs, upgrade implemented via mash) in the broader ecosystem to keep pkgx more closely aligned with direct execution with high version specificity. Even dev, one of its core features, is externally implemented.

If you wanted something lighter that could leverage the existing rust code, a tiny external application would also be quite easy to create in Rust.