[freshports-coders] interface to query freshports' database

[Dan Langille]

On 2/21/2010 5:17 PM, Mario G. Pavlov wrote:
> Hi,
> as I'm not the only person (anymore) wanting something like that I'm starting
> this thread as Dan suggested. So why doesn't freshports provide a way for
> external applications or in other words non-browser clients use freshports'
> database? Maybe there was no demand until now?

Correct.

> Anyway I've spoken to Dan
> sometime ago for such an interface. I would imagine it something like that:
> sending an HTTP GET request to freshports with maybe SQL-like (or whatever is
> better) parameters and freshports returning clear text (to save bandwidth) or
> XML (to be more elegant) with the response
> e.g.
> HTTP GET:
> www.freshports.org/publicAPI?ports=www\firefox,www\apache22&attributes=version,description
> RESPONSE (in clear text):
> www\firefox: version=3.5.7 description=web browser created by Mozilla
> www\apache22: version=2.2.6 description=widely used HTTP web server
>
> RESPONSE (in XML):
> <ports>
> 	<port name="www\firefox" version="3.5.7">
> 		<description>web browser created by Mozilla</description>
> 	</port>
> 	<port name="www\apache22" version="2.2.6">
> 		<description>widely used HTTP web server</description>
> 	</port>
> </ports>
>
> ...or something...
>
> Of course this is just a stupid example...the real thing would need some
> design work.
> So Dan, what do you think? Are you into something like that?

It's a matter of time.  In the immediate future, I have BSDCan and PGCOn 
until the end of May.  After that, I can consider such things.  But the 
design etc can start.

A good place to start is the list of information you want from the system.

-- 
Dan Langille - http://langille.org/