[Bug/Feature?]`download` doesn't support `--skip-broken` about dnf-plugins-core HOT 4 CLOSED

This is tricky. You are right that the download command does not support the --skip-broken switch. But the problem is, that to resolve all curl package dependencies we basically "pretend" we have an empty system, try to install the curl package there, and then download every package in the transaction. But if you add --exclude=basesystem, transaction resolution fails (because basesystem is one of curl dependencies). Unfortunately, we do not get something like a "partial transaction" from the solver; we don't get any transaction at all. Which in turn means dnf does not know what to download.

So the basic --skip-broken support for the download command might mean, that instead of raising an error, the curl package (and it's entire dependency tree) would be skipped from downloading. Which is not exactly what you need, I guess.

from dnf-plugins-core.

I haven't used it during a regular install, but does the --skip-broken indicate that any trees missing dependencies should be skipped, or that it should simply ignore a missing dependency when encountered in a tree and install anything it does know about? I assumed the latter. If that's how it worked, then I would think the download could have just passed the flag thru to the install --download-only --destdir command that it sounds like it's effectively running in the background.

from dnf-plugins-core.

Actually the former. DNF does not allow you to install packages with missing dependencies. You can do it using underlying rpm but not with DNF. And download --resolve works similarly - either you can download the whole dependency tree, or it fails and does not download anything.

from dnf-plugins-core.

Well dang. Digging into the code more, it appears all the logic is in python-hawkey and/or libdnf to do any dependency tree operations. Since my primary issue is wanting to pre-prune based on what's already available on a target system different from the one I'm currently on, it appears I'm out of luck because that's not possible from python-hawkey.

from dnf-plugins-core.