libalpm

Node.js bindings for libalpm (Arch Linux Package Manager).

Built with napi-rs wrapping the Rust alpm crate.

Install

npm install libalpm

Requires libalpm to be installed on the system (comes with pacman on Arch Linux). Prebuilt binaries are available for Linux x86_64 and aarch64 (glibc).

Usage

import { AlpmHandle, alpmVersion, vercmp } from "libalpm";

// Initialize with root and database path
const handle = new AlpmHandle("/", "/var/lib/pacman/");

// Query installed packages
const pkg = handle.getLocalPkg("pacman");
console.log(`${pkg.name} ${pkg.version}`); // pacman 7.1.0
console.log(pkg.depends.map((d) => d.depString)); // ['bash', 'glibc', ...]

// Search installed packages
const results = handle.searchLocal(["linux"]);

// Find what satisfies a dependency
const glibc = handle.findSatisfierLocal("glibc>=2.0");

// Register and query sync databases
handle.registerSyncDb("core", 0);
handle.registerSyncDb("extra", 0);

const syncPkg = handle.getSyncPkg("core", "glibc");
const found = handle.searchAllSync(["nodejs"]);
const satisfier = handle.findSatisfierSync("python>=3.12");

// Version comparison
vercmp("1.0", "2.0"); // -1
vercmp("1:1.0", "2.0"); // 1 (epoch wins)

// libalpm version
alpmVersion(); // "16.0.1"

API

AlpmHandle

| Method | Description | |---|---| | new AlpmHandle(root, dbPath) | Create a handle | | .root / .dbpath / .lockfile | Handle properties | | .getLocalPkg(name) | Get installed package by name | | .getLocalPkgs() | Get all installed packages | | .searchLocal(queries) | Search installed packages | | .findSatisfierLocal(dep) | Find installed package satisfying a dependency | | .registerSyncDb(name, sigLevel) | Register a sync database | | .registerSyncDbWithServers(name, sigLevel, servers) | Register with mirror URLs | | .unregisterAllSyncDbs() | Unregister all sync databases | | .getSyncDbNames() | List registered sync database names | | .getSyncPkg(dbName, pkgName) | Get package from a sync database | | .searchSync(dbName, queries) | Search a specific sync database | | .searchAllSync(queries) | Search all sync databases | | .findSatisfierSync(dep) | Find package satisfying a dependency across sync DBs |

Standalone Functions

| Function | Description | |---|---| | alpmVersion() | Returns the libalpm version string | | vercmp(a, b) | Compare version strings (-1, 0, 1) | | sigLevel() | Returns signature level flag constants | | transFlag() | Returns transaction flag constants |

Types

interface PackageInfo {
  name: string;
  version: string;
  desc?: string;
  url?: string;
  arch?: string;
  size: number;
  isize: number;
  depends: Dependency[];
  optdepends: Dependency[];
  conflicts: Dependency[];
  provides: Dependency[];
  replaces: Dependency[];
  requiredBy: string[];
  licenses: string[];
  // ... and more
}

interface Dependency {
  name: string;
  version?: string;
  depmod: number;
  depmodStr: string; // ">=", "=", "<", etc.
  depString: string; // "glibc>=2.12"
}

See examples/basic.ts for a full working demo.

Building from Source

Requires Rust toolchain and libalpm development headers.

pnpm install
pnpm run build
pnpm test

License

GPL-3.0-or-later