list of package names, versions[, descriptions]

[Mark Weiman]

What about something like [1]?

Mark

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Aurweb_RPC_interface

On Mon, 2019-09-30 at 21:44 -0400, Greg Minshall wrote:
> hi.  i'd like to keep a copy of the list of AUR packages, version
> numbers, and descriptions on my machine.  the list can be somewhat out
> of date (say, as of the last time i did "pacman -Syu", which, for me, is
> every week or two).
> 
> my question is how to do it with minimal overhead?  i know packages.gz.
> that will give me the list of packages.  however, without the version
> numbers, i won't be able to tell whether my cached information for a
> given package is up to date or not.
> 
> would it be possible to (put on the list to) provide at some point a
> "packages-versions.gz"?  or, even, "packages-versions-descriptions.gz"?
> (though the former is probably of more general use.)
> 
> below is my motivation for wanting this.  apologies if i've missed some
> already existing way of doing this.
> 
> cheers, Greg
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> motivation:
> 
> for the last several years i've been using a script i "wrote" (inspired
> by something similar from fink) that, from local information, lists
> available packages, install status, version numbers, and descriptions
> [1].  (i'm often in a disconnected, or badly connected, world, so i try
> to avoid relying on the web.)
> 
> having converted recently to arch, i pulled my script up to pacman [2],
> and would like to do an aur version, as well.
> 
> for "packages-versions.gz", i'd download that, then use the package
> names and versions to make queries to bring a local database up to date
> with what AUR has.  i'd damp this process to once a week or so.
> 
> (i've spent some time in the last week, offline, playing with figuring
> out how efficiently -- in terms of both number of requests and amount of
> [duplicated] data transmitted -- i can download all the information via
> repeated RPC searches on frequently-appearing search terms -- using
> packages.gz as a way of knowing all the entries.  but, as fun as that
> is, it's a hack.)
> 
> [1] https://github.com/greg-minshall/apt-list
> [2] https://gitlab.com/minshall/pac-list