Hi community!

I am currently starting to rewrite parts of the dpkg functionality in
Java (For startes the dpkg --info part and a package list parser). I
need this for my senior programming project apt-got[1,2], which is a
partial mirror application that focuses as a subproject on Debian
archives.

My question is: Is there a complete specification of the Debian
package list. I especially need information on what situations are
possible. (Eg. can you have 2 different versions of the same package
in one list?) Are there any further restrictions? Is there a specific
set of keyword in one package information or is it supposed to be
extendable?

I think I already figured out how to extract the information from
Debian packages directly, but would be glad about any (_very_
detailed) information about Debian packages.

Please cc me, as I am not subscribed to the mailing list.

Thank you very much,
Tobias Hertkorn

[1] http://hacktor.fs.uni-bayreuth.de/apt-got/
[2] http://sourceforge.net/projects/apt-got/



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On Sun, 25 Apr 2004, Tobias Hertkorn wrote:

> Hi community!
>
> I am currently starting to rewrite parts of the dpkg functionality in
> Java (For startes the dpkg --info part and a package list parser). I
> need this for my senior programming project apt-got[1,2], which is a
> partial mirror application that focuses as a subproject on Debian
> archives.

I already have code that can read/write debs in pure java; I also have code
that can parse control files, and do version compares.


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Adam Heath <doogie@debian.org> writes:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> On Sun, 25 Apr 2004, Tobias Hertkorn wrote:
> 

What kind of partial mirroring?

I ask because hopefully any partial mirroring should be possible with
debmirror2 and it would be wastefull to implement yet another
mirroring script.

MfG
Goswin


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On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Adam Heath wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Apr 2004, Tobias Hertkorn wrote:
> 
in[vbcol=seagreen] 
I[vbcol=seagreen] 
>
> I already have code that can read/write debs in pure java; I also
> have code that can parse control files, and do version compares.

That's great. I would like to take a look at the code. But my
researchs (again after this email) did not produce any hints to its
existence.
If you are willing to release it under the GNU General Public License
(GPL), please send me a copy of your source and I would be more than
willing to shape it into a project and publish it on my webpage. (Of
course honoring your efforts.)

Cheers,
T



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On Mon, 26 Apr 2004, Tobias Hertkorn wrote:

> That's great. I would like to take a look at the code. But my
> researchs (again after this email) did not produce any hints to its
> existence.
> If you are willing to release it under the GNU General Public License
> (GPL), please send me a copy of your source and I would be more than
> willing to shape it into a project and publish it on my webpage. (Of
> course honoring your efforts.)

It was never released.

The deb writing code(didn't test the reading part), is using another
unreleased project of mine: ALTAR(Abstract Library To ARchives).  It's a
unified api(current version only in java, with plans for native versions in
other languages) to ar(gnu, bsd support in the future), cpio(binary and
compat), and tar(standard, posix, gnu).

I have plans to do a native zip(not using java.util.Zip(it sucks)), and rpm
based on cpio.  The above all has unit tests as well, and nice javadoc.  But
no user-level/developer docs.  Maybe you would be interested in helping to
write that?

Plus, all the above uses a custom autoconf build system, that looks like
automake: erector-set.  Support for projects with source in multiple
languages: c, c++, java, python, perl.  In gcj mode, Java is treated like c+
+.
I can use jikes to create Makefile dependencies for java(extremly helpful).
Again, no docs at all for erector-set.



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On Sun, Apr 25, 2004 at 09:33:48PM -0700, Tobias Hertkorn wrote:
> Hi community!
>
> I am currently starting to rewrite parts of the dpkg functionality in
> Java (For startes the dpkg --info part and a package list parser). I
> need this for my senior programming project apt-got[1,2], which is a
> partial mirror application that focuses as a subproject on Debian
> archives.
>
> My question is: Is there a complete specification of the Debian
> package list. I especially need information on what situations are
> possible. (Eg. can you have 2 different versions of the same package
> in one list?) Are there any further restrictions? Is there a specific
> set of keyword in one package information or is it supposed to be
> extendable?
>
> I think I already figured out how to extract the information from
> Debian packages directly, but would be glad about any (_very_
> detailed) information about Debian packages.
>
> Please cc me, as I am not subscribed to the mailing list.

man deb
man deb-control

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Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> writes:

> On Sun, Apr 25, 2004 at 09:33:48PM -0700, Tobias Hertkorn wrote: 

You can have multiple packages and even multiple archs in the Packages
file. There is a specific set of keaywords that will always be present
because the debs must have them but you can specify extra keywords as
long as they are rfc822 conform.

Given Maintainer names in UTF-8 you even get some violations of
rfc-822 format in there too.

Your parser should be as flexible as possible and has to handle even
maliciously broken Packages files. Recovering nicely after a broken
Package entry is a big plus but you could error on it too.
[vbcol=seagreen] 

Reading rfc-822, after which the Packages file are modelled, would be
a good start. And then the policy manual, maintainer guide and so on
to see what deb files have in their control files.
[vbcol=seagreen] 
>
> man deb
> man deb-control

And of cause those too. 

MfG
Goswin

PS: you might even want to support pkg:abi or {abi} for multiarch
support. Check on the progress on multiarch on debian-amd64.


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Ben Collins wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 25, 2004 at 09:33:48PM -0700, Tobias Hertkorn wrote: 
in[vbcol=seagreen] 
> man deb
> man deb-control

*smile* - my bad. You made me blush. What a rookie mistake.
Thanks for that tip, that's exactly what I needed.



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