Package Manager Backends

TRX abstracts all package manager interaction behind the PackageManager trait defined in src/managers/mod.rs. The correct backend is selected at runtime in get_system_manager.

PackageManager Trait

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
pub trait PackageManager: Send + Sync {
    fn name(&self) -> &str;

    fn search(&self, query: &str) -> Vec<Package>;
    fn get_installed(&self) -> HashSet<String>;
    fn get_installed_details(&self) -> Vec<Package>;
    fn get_updates(&self) -> Vec<Package>;
    fn get_details(&self, pkg: &str, provider: &str) -> Option<HashMap<String, String>>;

    fn install(
        &self,
        terminal: &mut DefaultTerminal,
        pkgs: &HashSet<String>,
    ) -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>>;

    fn remove(
        &self,
        terminal: &mut DefaultTerminal,
        pkgs: &HashSet<String>,
    ) -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>>;

    fn system_upgrade(
        &self,
        terminal: &mut DefaultTerminal,
    ) -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>>;

    fn refresh_databases(
        &self,
        terminal: &mut DefaultTerminal,
    ) -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>>;
}
}

terminal is passed into mutating operations so that the backend can call execute_external_command — which temporarily hands the terminal back to the underlying package manager's interactive output.

Backend Selection

get_system_manager in src/managers/mod.rs uses a simple priority order:

1. OS == "macos" → BrewManager
2. pacman --version succeeds → ArchManager (Pacman + optional AUR helper)
3. apt --version succeeds → AptManager
4. Fallback → ArchManager (with default yay AUR helper)

Shared Utilities

parse_alternating_lines

Many package manager CLI tools output results in alternating-line format:

<name> <version> [flags...]
    <description>
<name> <version> ...
    <description>

parse_alternating_lines parses this format, calls fuzzy_match on each package name, drops scores ≤ 0.01, and returns results sorted by score.

DETAILS_CACHE

A global Arc<Mutex<HashMap<String, HashMap<String, String>>>> used by all backends to cache detail lookups (the get_details call). This avoids repeated subprocess invocations when the user scrolls back to a previously inspected package.

Supported Backends