FS#15728 - Add depends and makedepends to the JSON output of http://aur.archlinux.org/rpc.php

Attached to Project: AUR web interface
Opened by Xyne (Xyne) - Thursday, 30 July 2009, 04:34 GMT
Last edited by Lukas Fleischer (lfleischer) - Thursday, 12 July 2012, 06:00 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Backend
Status Closed
Assigned To Lukas Fleischer (lfleischer)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version 1.5.6.2
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 5
Private No

Details

This is a request to add "depends" and "makedepends" to the JSON output of http://aur.archlinux.org/rpc.php

This info can be used by other applications to resolve dependencies without scraping the AUR web interface or downloading the PKGBUILD.

If you are worried that this will clutter the output, a new method could be added for this output, such as "fullinfo". Alternatively, the current output of the "info" method could be moved to a "summary" method.

Another possibility would be to accept an argument list for the data that info should return, e.g.
http://aur.archlinux.org/rpc.php?type=info&arg=foo&show=depends:makedepends:version
This task depends upon

Closed by  Lukas Fleischer (lfleischer)
Thursday, 12 July 2012, 06:00 GMT
Reason for closing:  Won't implement
Additional comments about closing:  See last comment.
Comment by Loui Chang (louipc) - Monday, 03 August 2009, 17:19 GMT
Hmm I'm not sure if this feature should be included or not.
I'm sided towards leaving the parsing to the user though.

The second possibility has already been discussed, and it was
decided to just return all info to reduce complex queries which
would have a negative effect on performance.
Comment by Xyne (Xyne) - Saturday, 08 August 2009, 22:20 GMT
I'm only really concerned about being able to get all of the information so if it's simpler to return everything, then just forget that I mentioned accepting extra arguments.
Comment by Vlad George (DonVla) - Monday, 10 August 2009, 16:21 GMT
actually, it would be useful if the simple json output would contain all the common infos about a package _only_ concerning the AUR, ie pkgname, description, maintainer, category, votes, ood-status, perhaps comments, perhaps last update.
Comment by eliott (cactus) - Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 08:15 GMT
comments, a big no.
Aur now returns out of data status, and number of votes. as well as name, description, and coming soon.. category.
There is a separate maintainer search target now. I suppose the main json results could return maintainer too, as that might be relevant.

Not so sure about dependencies...
Comment by Vlad George (DonVla) - Tuesday, 27 October 2009, 08:37 GMT
Thanks for the msearch!
What's the "LocaltionID" tag for?
Comment by Lukas Fleischer (lfleischer) - Saturday, 13 August 2011, 16:01 GMT
-1 from me. Given that the AUR doesn't use a full bash parser to parse PKGBUILDs, this field won't provide any reliable information (there's a bunch of real-world cases where we fail already). AUR helpers should rather parse any critical information themselves.
Comment by Xyne (Xyne) - Sunday, 15 July 2012, 16:18 GMT
The server-side parsing of the dependencies is considered reliable enough to include in the user interface. The JSON API should convey all information that can be scraped from the HTML pages. Why would you arbitrarily impose different criteria on them?

The JSON API is not only used for creating AUR package installers. It is also used to create console AUR browsers and that information is useful. If it wasn't then it wouldn't be included on the package page.

Just add a caveat to the RPC page about the unreliability of the dependency parser.

Loading...