More convenient local index creation

[andrius-puksta-sensmetry]

Currently, to create a local index with N projects, N+1 commands have to be run. Add a more convenient way to put more packages into a new/existing local index. Requested in https://forum.sensmetry.com/t/local-index/503.

[simonas-drauksas-sensmetry]

Something like requirements.txt in pip? Have an option to install things from a simple text file where each line is the same identifier you'd pass to the CLI.

This could also possibly work for sysand add if you want to bulk-add multiple usages (e.g. all standard lib packages).

[consideRatio]

While this is a convenient feature, its could also be nice to say "no, at least not yet", to this feature.

Some workaround examples:

# windows in powershell
'filea', 'fileb', 'filec' | % { sysand index add $_ }

# mac / linux
printf '%s\n' filea fileb filec | xargs -n 1 sysand index add

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Supporting this means the UX becomes a bit more complicated (while also simpler in other regards):

• what is the expected behavior, failing to add the third package out of five leads to what?
• an error of adding a single package out of x files leads to a more complicated logging situation

[andrius-puksta-sensmetry]

• what is the expected behavior, failing to add the third package out of five leads to what?

The same applies to include and exclude, which already allow providing multiple files. They do the whole thing as a single transaction, meaning if any file fails, nothing will be changed.

While this is a convenient feature, its could also be nice to say "no, at least not yet", to this feature.

Yes, this is not urgent, no immediate plans to implement.

[consideRatio]

The same applies to include and exclude, which already allow providing multiple files. They do the whole thing as a single transaction, meaning if any file fails, nothing will be changed.

Ah nice! Iif we have users needing that specifically - a sysand index add of the "atomic" kind rather than just a convenience - its something far harder to workaround and hence more worth supporting.

[andrius-puksta-sensmetry]

if we have users needing that specifically - a sysand index add of the "atomic" kind rather than just a convenience - its something far harder to workaround and hence more worth supporting.

Atomic sysand index add would be much more difficult, since it copies around files + modifies metadata, whereas include/exclude only modify metadata.

I think atomicity is not needed here, provided that repeated addition of the same package does nothing (i.e. does not fail). This allows trying to add many packages and if some fail, retry with the same/different set, but without having to wade through the whole list (especially annoying if you do something like sysand index add ../kpars/*.kpar) to not pass those that already happen to be present.