[pca] pca -l missing

[Martin Paul]

French, David wrote:
> Taking the recent kernel patch, 137137-09 came out a few days ago, less
> than 14.  Even though it obsoletes 137111-08, it came out more than 14
> days ago.  Shouldn't it be installed since 137137-09 doesn't show in the
> set I have chosen?  Currently, if I chose --minage=14 I end up with no
> kernel update.  So if I am at 137111-02 I stay there, which is not what
> I would want.

If I understand you correctly, you think that 137111-08 should be listed 
in "pca -l missing" output because it was the current kernel patch >=14 
days ago, right? That's not how "minage" works. There is not enough 
information in patchdiag.xref for pca to compute the exact state of 
patches X days ago. The "minage" option was added for a user who wanted 
to let patches "ripe" before they are installed, and e.g. not install 
any patches that are newer than 14 days. But even for that it's not 
perfect, as soon as e.g. a required patch is updated.

Most of the time it's much better to save a certain patchdiag.xref file 
(e.g. from 14 days ago) and use that with pca (use the "xrefdir" 
option). Like that, you really get the state of the past date - it's 
like a time machine. In this xref file, 137111-08 will still be the 
current kernel patch, so it will be correctly shown as missing.

Hope this helps,

Martin.