1) I understand that --minimal option is normally designed to be used with 
either missingr or missingrs operands.
I've tested --minimal option with the "missing" operand and its having some 
effect, but it's not clear to me what it's doing?
Is the behaviour of --minimal defined for use case that is omitting  r and s?

2) When using the --list or --listhtml options, I see that the header displays 
"List: missing" where "missing" is the operand. This is useful to the viewer of 
the list to see what operand was invoked. However, the option --minimal is not 
showing up in the header anywhere. So, If I am viewing the list I can't easily 
tell if the list is latest version or minimal. Should the designation of latest 
vs. minimal be visible in the list output? One idea is to change the "CR" in 
the header to say either "MR" or "LR" for Minimal Release, or Latest Release, 
respectively.

3) I found a use case that leads to installing a patch which is immediately 
overwritten with a newer patch. This shouldn't break anything, but its less 
than optimal.
Run:  PCA -l --minimal missingrs  on a host that has VTS 7.0 patch set 10 or 
earlier.
I see that patch 146861-01 is listed to be installed, then 147935-01 is listed 
to be installed later in the list.
I understand that the former patch is in the recommended list.
And the latter patch is in the security list.
According to the "Patches accumulated and obsoleted by this patch" section for 
the latter patch, it lists the former patch.
I would have expected that PCA would check each patch being added to the list 
and remove the earlier ones from the list that are obsoleted by later patches 
to be installed. Maybe this checking is not being done? It would be a useful 
feature to speed up patching by not installing patches that should be skipped.  
This check can be automated using the information provided in the 
patchdiag.xref.

$ egrep '^146861|^147446|^147935' patchdiag.xref
146861|01|Jun/06/11|R|S|O|  
|Unbundled|sparc;|SUNWvtss:7.0,REV=2008.02.07.18.38;SUNWvts:7.0,REV=2008.02.15.13.31;SUNWvtsts:7.0,REV=2008.02.15.13.31;|Obsoleted
 by: 147446-01 SunVTS 7.0: Patch Set 11
147446|01|Sep/22/11| |S|O|  
|Unbundled|sparc;|SUNWvtss:7.0,REV=2008.02.07.18.38;SUNWvts:7.0,REV=2008.02.15.13.31;SUNWvtsts:7.0,REV=2008.02.15.13.31;|Obsoleted
 by: 147935-01 SunVTS 7.0: Patch Set 12
147935|01|Nov/17/11| |S| |  
|Unbundled|sparc;|SUNWvtss:7.0,REV=2008.02.07.18.38;SUNWvts:7.0,REV=2008.02.15.13.31;SUNWvtsts:7.0,REV=2008.02.15.13.31;|SunVTS
 7.0 Patch Set 13

Neil G. Brookins
Identity and Authentication Solutions - IT Global Solutions
Towers Watson
1500 Market Street | Philadelphia, PA 19102
Phone: +1 215 246 6046
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>




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