[Rpm-metadata] Debian metadata (was Re: format misc)

[Jeff Licquia]

On Sat, 2003-10-04 at 02:29, seth vidal wrote:
> Hi folks,
>  Take a look at this:
>    http://linux.duke.edu/~skvidal/metadata/rpm-metadata2.xml
> 
> tell me if it seems more workable based on the suggestions given today.
> 
> I've taken some of the suggestions, others I've modified slightly - see
> if this is more appropriate.
> 
> I decided on calling it <format> and then some namespace so that:
> 1. it's not rpm or deb specific
> 2. it leaves an opening for other formats
> 
> I might not have put enough things inside that node, though.
> 
> Please feel free to edit that file and repost it so we have an example
> to work from.

Very nice.

I've written a Debian counterpart in Python to generate v2 metadata. 
The script, and some example output, is at: 

  http://hackers.progeny.com/~licquia/rpm-metadata/

It works off the apt cache; give it a package apt knows about, and it
will send the metadata for that package to stdout.  With little
modification, it should be able to work with collections of debs or a
standard apt Packages file.  It will probably only work on Debian, and
needs the python-apt package.

A few notes:

 - When reading the cache, python-apt spews to stdout, so you have to
delete the first two lines of output from the program.  Yech.

 - The <format> namespace is obviously bogus.

 - <location> doesn't have xml:base set.  My utility would need to parse
sources.list and figure out which repository this came from before I
could fill that in properly.  A real tool to generate this metadata
would know how to fill in the right xml:base.

 - <requires> is <depends> here.  This isn't me being stubborn; it's
just more consistent with <predepends>.  Do we want to keep this as
<requires>, or is it OK for Debian repos to use <depends>?  If we use
<requires>, does RPM have something equivalent to Debian Pre-Depends? 
Pre-Requires, maybe?  (Pre-Depends is like Depends, except that the
depended-upon packages must be fully installed and configured before
this package can start installation.)

 - I've added Debian's additional dependency types; a full list is in
the script.  I added them to the top level, not to <format>.

 - For logical or, I've added a new <orentry> tag that can contain
<entry> tags.  If anyone has a better idea for representing this, I'm
all ears.

 - Some Debian metadata may be missing, but it should be easy to add.