Add caching to yaourt

[alexoneill]

pacman(8) has a caching feature, and the ability to "download only". See the folllowing excerpts from the man page:

       --cachedir <dir>
           Specify an alternative package cache location (a typical default
           is /var/cache/pacman/pkg). Multiple cache directories can be specified,
           and they are tried in the order they are passed to pacman.  NOTE: This
           is an absolute path, and the root path is not automatically prepended.

       -w, --downloadonly
           Retrieve all packages from the server, but do not install/upgrade anything.

This proposes to add the above functionality into yaourt. Specifically:

• The ability to cache fully built packages in a specified directory
• The ability to install cached packages from a specified directory
• The ability to download only (only build, skipping install) within the caching directory

Currently, yaourt does not support these operations, but comes close with --export.

[f2404]

The ability to cache fully built packages in a specified directory
The ability to install cached packages from a specified directory

These are already available - pacman's cachedir is used for that.

The ability to download only (only build, skipping install) within the caching directory

Build a package and save it to cache without installing? Do you need this?

[alexoneill]

The second feature would be nice to have for AUR caching, specifically for offline package installation. Other AUR package managers, such as pacaur have this feature.

[Skunnyk]

Hello,
What about EXPORT=1 and EXPORTDIR settings in yaourtrc ? It's not perfect, but it can store source and compiled packages (based on makepkg PKGDEST). Or do I miss something ?