If anyone is interested - here is a version extracted from svn of dependency.inc. There are example uses in drpkg.

It provides an api to parse and process dependency info - no storage - that is a separate concern. You have a tree walker with callbacks + a bunch of cosmetic functions.

It is generally self-explanatory.

The bryght repository seems to be down.

So here are the urls to the drpkg and relations svn repositories maintained at MEC by me. I will be syncing them to bryght regularly.

svn://mec0026.engi.cf.ac.uk/relations
svn://mec0026.engi.cf.ac.uk/drpkg

To checkout the relations code do:
svn co svn://mec0026.engi.cf.ac.uk/relations

To checkout the drpkg code do:
svn co svn://mec0026.engi.cf.ac.uk/drpkg

Update: It is back up, but I'll keep both in sync.
Update: repair

Install

1. download - download the packages into the cache diractory
2. unpack - unpack the selected packages, if not unpacked into the staging area
3. pre-config - get all required data from the user, either from a kick-start file or from some UI
4. prepare - copy or link the files from the staging to the vhost directory (including the remote host)
5. install-db - poll the remote host, to do the database install
6. post-config - poll the remote host, to do the post-db configuration, based on the pre-config answers

Update

1. download - downloads PACKAGES from the repconfigured URL
2. update-cache - updates then local package info cache

Package

• package - packages the directories specified by a package description
• package-db - packages the database

Upgrade

1. download
2. unpack
3. pre-config
4. prepare
5. update-db - apply the required database updates
6. post-config

Dist upgrade

1. changedist - gets the DISTS file
2. upgrade - same as upgrade

Notes

All this is shamelessly ripped off the supercow powered apt, and twisted a bit to suit Drupal installs

I uploaded an initial phase runner, drpkg.inc, and an interface to dependency.inc to the bryght svn.

It is a short and self explanatory file.

drpkg_install_exec($packages,$uri) is the thing to be called by installer routines, where $packages is an array of package name and uri should point to a PACKAGES file.

The code assumes that for each package there is a file in modules|themes|theme_engines for each install phase, called package_name.phase, for example relations.install .

Please discuss this in this drupal forum thread

It was quiet, I wonder why? Nevermind. I'll try and summarise my talk. The main aim was to describe some of the ideas behind the dependency and installer api we ( Adrian and me) were working for some time on. So what do we have now. We have packages - core, modules, themes, theme engines. We have both cvs and point releases with onoe offical module version per major release. We store thing in different locations - core or (sub)site directories, module, theme and misc directories. And put in the mix the dependencies modules on core, modules depend on other modules, themes depend on theme engines and possibly other modules. It can easily become daunting. Just summarise it things depend on either on an api , module or databse schema.

drpkg is a package manager for drupal. It is inspired by the Debian's dpkg, hence the name, and apt.

Long term you should be able to update, install, upgrade and clone a drupal setup using the package manager. Maybe more.

At the moment the code is in an early phase. Pre-alpha.

To get a working copy do svn checkout svn://mec0026.engi.cf.ac.uk/drpkg

You can browse the repository using your favourite web browser.