Checkupdates: Preserve pacman colors when printing the list of pending updates

The colors for the listing of pending updates are inherited from the "Color" option in /etc/pacman.conf (since it uses pacman -Qu to generate the list).

However, since the list is put into an array via a mapfile the colors are not preserved. Indeed, the "Color" option in /etc/pacman.conf correspond to the --color auto pacman flag which prints colors only when outputting onto in a TTY (which a mapfile/array is not ) and the lack of coloring seems confusing for users (see #117 (closed) & #1 (closed)).

This commit makes checkupdates forcing the use of --color always during the pacman -Qu command in the mapfile to generate the list of pending updates with colors for users that have the "Color" option enabled in the pacman.conf.

mentioned in issue #117 (closed)

Here's a PKGUILD to build a pacman-contrib package including this change for testing purposes:

# Maintainer: Johannes Löthberg <johannes@kyriasis.com>
# Maintainer: Daniel M. Capella <polyzen@archlinux.org>

pkgname=pacman-contrib
pkgver=1.10.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc='Contributed scripts and tools for pacman systems'
arch=('x86_64')
url=https://gitlab.archlinux.org/antiz/pacman-contrib
license=('GPL')
depends=('fakeroot' 'pacman' 'perl')
makedepends=('asciidoc' 'git')
optdepends=('diffutils: for pacdiff'
            'findutils: for pacdiff --find'
            'mlocate: for pacdiff --locate'
            'sudo: privilege elevation for several scripts'
            'vim: default merge program for pacdiff')
source=("git+$url.git#branch=checkupdates_colors")
b2sums=('SKIP')
validpgpkeys=('04DC3FB1445FECA813C27EFAEA4F7B321A906AD9') # Daniel M. Capella <polyzen@archlinux.org>
#             '5134EF9EAF65F95B6BB1608E50FB9B273A9D0BB5')  # Johannes Löthberg <johannes@kyriasis.com>

prepare() {
  cd $pkgname
  ./autogen.sh
}

build() {
  cd $pkgname
  ./configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --localstatedir=/var
  make
}

check() {
  cd $pkgname
  make check
}

package() {
  cd $pkgname
  make DESTDIR="$pkgdir" install
}

# vim:set ts=2 sw=2 et:

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• efdf14a3 - Revert "Checkupdates: Preserve pacman colors when printing the list of pending updates"
• 6aa3c15c - Force the updates array to keep pacman colors if the Color option is used in pacman.conf

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marked this merge request as draft

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• 97bcd14c - Use a proper 'if' condition

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• 9b1b52c9 - Use --color always as the mapfile isn't a TTY

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marked this merge request as ready

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• f98efcc7 - Use `--color always` during the `pacman -Qu` command in the mapfile to...

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I wonder if we should also replace --nocolor with --color=<always|never|auto>

Eventually... If the aim for pacman-contrib is to stay close to pacman's way of handling such option, then maybe we should consider this indeed.
Although, checkupdates isn't the only script with the --nocolor option so, if anything, it should be done globally in a separate MR IMO.

PS: Thanks for the fixup commit. I wasn't sure if we wanted to link the color option from checkupdates to this (since it's actually another package's option) but I guess it makes sense that way!

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• 39d87be6 - fixup

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mentioned in commit 5472d4f7

merged