I once saw a wrapper-script for pacman in the forums that was basically a short-hand version of common pacman tasks. I thought this was a good idea and over the last couple years, I’ve expanded on it. It does just about everything I need it to. It’s real basic and I call it arpa . Here is a basic synopsis:

arpa [option] [*package] - a generic package tasks wrapper script -e, --explicit - install a package as explicit -g, --get - get/download package upgrade(s) : -G get pkg upgrades all -i, --install - install a package : -I install as dependency -l, --list - list package files : -L list pkgs installed -o, --owns - owning package of a file -q, --query - query for an installed package : -Q query w/ description -r, --remove - remove a pkg and its deps : -R force, no argue orphs -s, --search - search for a package : -S search w/ description -u, --upgrade - upgrade system : -U upgrade AUR -y, --sync - sync package db

Good for me to have this around so I can remember everything :), and it is in the AUR.