Subject: Re: Volunteers wanted for NetBSD-FreshPorts interface
To: Hubert Feyrer <hubert@feyrer.de>
From: Dan Langille <dan@langille.org>
List: tech-pkg
Date: 12/28/2000 13:58:34
On 28 Dec 2000, at 0:46, Hubert Feyrer wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Dec 2000, Dan Langille wrote:
> > The main reason for asking for a volunteer was twofold.  First, I'm 
> > preoccupied with getting the new version of the website functioning and 
> > need to delegate some tasks out  (for example, someone else is doing 
> > the FreeBSD/FreshPorts XML interface).  Second, I would prefer 
> > someone within the NetBSD community to provide the interface, for 
> > political, social, practical, and delegation reasons.
> 
> Well, you didn't tell us where we can find details on the new format
> either. ;-) 

Ouch.  Sorry.  Here they are.  When I posted my original message, 
they were in a temporary home.  The above location is permanent.  The 
first is the DTD, the second is an example XML document based on that 
DTD.  Note: The DTD is only a few days old.  New fields will probably be 
added, but the existing foundation is unlikely to change.

http://freshports.org/docs/cvs_commits.dtd
http://freshports.org/docs/commits.xml

> Given that you basically want the information that goes into the
> source-changes mails that are created on any CVS commit, 

Sounds right to me.

> I'd say it's
> rather difficult to gather that information, 

Sorry, I got lost here.  Which information is difficult to gather?  If it's in 
the source-changes mail, it can be parsed.  That's what FreshPorts 
does now.  That's what is being done to get the new XML data format.  
That coding should be done within the next 24 hours.

> esp. as a commit may not
> actually do any functional change (e.g. I just committed a text change to
> a pkg/DESCR file), or a pkg upgrade may consist of several seperate
> commits. Where is the line?

Where is what line?  Sorry, I'm lost.

> BTW I think it's overkill to redo cvsweb in FreshPorts by providing exact
> file/change information. 

That's not the objective of FreshPorts, but it's a side effect.  Read on.

> I guess most people are interrested if a pkg is
> updated what the changes are, and that's it. They'll update their source
> then, and install the pkg. Or what is the exact idea behind this very
> fine-grained update information?

FreshPorts needs to know if any of the following have changed: 
Makefile, pkg-descr, pkg-comment.  They contain information which 
FreshPorts provides via the website.  If those files change, they need to 
bed extracted from the online repository and used to update the 
FreshPorts database.

BTW: once a commit is done, are the files immediately avaiable via 
CVSweb?

Thanks for the feedback.  It is appreciated.

--
Dan Langille
The FreeBSD Diary - http://freebsddiary.org/
       FreshPorts - http://freshports.org/
     NZ Broadband - http://unixathome.org/broadband/