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

[seth vidal]

> 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.

Do you mean you just made it up or it is bogus in that you don't like
it?

>  - <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.)

Making requires == depends for rpm doesn't bother me - but how about
making an optional attribute of <depends type="pre"> or some such thing?

>  - 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>.

I think those would be more appropriate inside <format> unless rpm is
going to add suggests suddenly (which I doubt)

>  - 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.

I'm not sure what to do with that.

do the orentries only exist for suggests? If so then that is more reason
to put suggests inside format.

-sv