flash poll: do we need a library for parsing sources.list?

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 05:56:11PM +0000, James Westby wrote:
> It sounds like this should already be available in python-apt. However
> I have never managed to actually find out what the API of python-apt
> is, so I can't say for sure.

Indeed there is something on that on python-apt, the easiest reference I
have is /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/aptsources/sourceslist.py. I
haven't tried it, but it seems skimming through it that most of the
things I need are already there. I'll give it a test then, thanks for
the pointer!

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 06:45:34PM +0000, Enrico Zini wrote:
> Note that /etc/debtags/sources.list and /etc/debtags/sources.list.d
> follow the same syntax, only they have 'tag' instead of 'deb'.  It would
> be interesting to be able to parse that, too, even if it wouldn't be
> very important.

The interface in python-apt seems to support generic lines, though
internally marks as valid those starting with one of "deb", "deb-src",
"rpm", "rpm-src". See line 142 of the aforementioned file. I haven't
checked what actually are the implications of not being marked as valid.

If you want to support debtags lines it seems like you need to submit a
patch for that ...

> OTOH, if any of you are coming to FOSDEM, in my talk I'm going to
> present the problem of downloading extra package information (read, for
> example, popcon) into the system.  This could mean new sources.  We'll
> see.

Ok, I'll be attending indeed.

Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- PhD in Computer Science ............... now what?
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