[Qa-debsources] Debian Sources API for getting package information

[Deniss Vakilov]

Hi Team,

Could I ask you to help me?
I am searching a way to pull data from package repositories for different distributions.
You have a really great API to get data about packages.

But for me also important description of package and CPU architecture(for which package optimized).
Currently I see only one option: to download all(100+) Package.gz(or Package.xz) files, which contains basics about packages and index them in database. It can be implemented but it is too inconvenient and one more API in web that makes almost the same as yours.

Could you please offer me any solution (except that I described) which I can?


Thank you so much.
Deniss

________________________________
From: Matthieu Caneill
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 22:36
To: Deniss Vakilov
Cc: qa-debsources at lists.alioth.debian.org
Subject: Re: [Qa-debsources] Debian Sources API for getting package information

Hi,
Thanks for reaching out!

On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 11:18:48PM +0000, Deniss Vakilov wrote:
> I was researching your API and got unexpected behaviour - 'latest' instead of version number not working for package information API.
> I found it strange, that is why I am writing this letter.
>
> As mentioned on https://sources.debian.org/doc/api/ page:
> """
> Note: wherever a specific version number is required, you can use the string "latest" instead to get redirected to the most recent version of the package.
> """
>
> But in following example it does not work:
> https://sources.debian.org/api/info/package/davfs2/latest/
>
> Could you  please check it?

I confirm it does not work, but I don't know why and don't have much
debugging time these days. If it works for you, you can list the
versions of the package, take the last element and then use it to
retrieve package information for this latest version. It adds a step
to what you're trying to achieve, but it works. :)

> Also, I have a question about package description.
> When I execute command 'apt search cowsay', for exact match result I have following short description:
> "configurable talking cow"
>
> Can I get it from API?

Unfortunately this information is not part of the debsources database.

Cheers,
--
Matthieu