Methods used by the backends are as follows: The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or installed;~devel search_term A single word search term with no wildcard chars. Do not refresh the package cache. This should be fast. Always emit installed before available packages first, as it allows the client program to perform the GUI filtering and matching whilst the daemon is running the transaction. The search query in the backend should not be case sensitive, and should not be sensitive to _ or -. This method typically emits Progress, Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be available or installed. The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or installed;~devel group_type An enumerated group_type, or unknown Do not refresh the package cache. This should be fast. This method typically emits Progress, Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be available or installed. The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or installed;~devel search_term A single word search term with no wildcard chars. Do not refresh the package cache. This should be fast. This is very similar to search-name. This should search as much data as possible, including, if possible repo names, package summaries, descriptions and URLs. This method typically emits Progress, Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be available or installed. The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or installed;~devel search_term A single word search term with no wildcard chars. This should search for files. This should allow an application to find out what package owns a file on the system. This method typically emits Progress, Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be available or installed. The installer should always install extra packages automatically as the use could call GetDepends prior to the install if a confirmation is required in the UI. The arguments are: Option Description package_id A single, valid, package ID. This should search for files. This should allow an application to find out what package owns a file on the system. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be downloading, updating, installing or removing. The installer should always install extra packages automatically as the use could call GetDepends prior to the install if a confirmation is required in the UI. The arguments are: Option Description full_path A full path and filename to a single package. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be downloading, updating, installing or removing. The arguments are: Option Description allow_deps Either "yes" or "no". If yes allow other packages to be removed with the package, but "no" should cause the script to abort if other packages are dependant on the package. package_id A single, valid, package ID. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be downloading, updating, installing or removing. GetDepends should return packages that this package depends on. The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or installed; package_id A single, valid, package ID. recursive Either "yes" or "no". If yes then the requirements should be returned for all packages returned. This means if gnome-power-manager depends on NetworkManager and NetworkManager depends on HAL, then GetDepends on gnome-power-manager should return both HAL and NetworkManager. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be available or installed. Resolve turns a single package name into a package_id suitable for the other methods. The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or installed;~devel package A single package name, e.g. art-clipart. This method typically emits Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be available or installed. GetUpdateDetail should return details about the update. The arguments are: Option Description package_id A single, valid, package ID. This method typically emits UpdateDetail and Error GetRequires should return packages that depend on this package. This is useful to know, as if package_id is being removed, we can warn the user what else would be removed. The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or installed; package_id A single, valid, package ID. recursive Either "yes" or "no". If yes then the requirements should be returned for all packages returned. This means if gnome-power-manager depends on NetworkManager and NetworkManager depends on HAL, then GetRequires on HAL should return both gnome-power-manager and NetworkManager. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be available or installed. GetDescription should return the description of that package_id. The arguments are: Option Description package_id A single, valid, package ID. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Description. GetFiles should return the file list of that package_id. The arguments are: Option Description package_id A single, valid, package ID. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Files. The installer should always update extra packages automatically. The arguments are: Option Description package_id A single, valid, package ID. This should search for files. This should allow an application to find out what package owns a file on the system. This method typically emits Progress, Status and Error and Package. The installer should update all the updateable packages on the system, including automatically installing any new packages that are needed for dependancies. There are no arguments. This method typically emits Progress, Error and RequireRestart and Package. Package enumerated types should be downloading, updating, installing or removing. This function should return a list of packages that are installed and are upgradable. The arguments are: Option Description filter A correct filter, e.g. none or basename This method typically emits Progress, Error and Package. Package enumerated types should be blocked, low, normal, important or security. The status blocked signifies the package cannot be updated, probably due to other dependencies not being met. This type allows the GUI tools to show to the user that an update exists, but cannot be installed. The reason for it not being installed should be put into the update description when doing GetUpdateDetail. A filter such as basename or gui is also useful if you want to do filtering on the method to only show the main packages rather than the complete list. The complete list is available but specifying none as the filter. Using no filter which may be useful in advanced tools or when using libpackagekit and searching for an update of a specific name. Other filter types may be present, but can be safely ignored of the backend does not support them. There are no arguments. This should fetch updated meta-data for all enabled repositories. This operation should be only scheduled when the computer is idle as the network connection will be very active, and will the computer will have have non-trivial levels of hard disk and processor activity. For these reasons, it should not be done automatically when on battery power. This method typically emits Progress, Error and Package. Return the list of repositories used in the system. There are no arguments. This method typically emits RepoDetail. This enables the repository specified. The arguments are: Option Description repo_id A repository identifier, e.g. fedora-development-debuginfo enabled true if enabled, false if disabled. This sets a parameter for the repository specified. The arguments are: Option Description repo_id A repository identifier, e.g. fedora-development-debuginfo parameter The backend specific value, e.g. set-download-url. value The backend specific value, e.g. http://foo.bar.org/baz.