Wiki
First go and read how Pacup
works to have a general
understanding of Pacup. Understanding that isn't necessary to use repology
variable in your pacscripts, but it helps.
This wiki uses pacup --show-repology <pacscript> command to show the parsed
repology response.
Let's look at an example of the repology var for
brave-browser-bin.pacscript
repology=("project: brave")Pacup uses the Repology API to get the latest
versions of your pacscript. Here's how an API response from the API looks like
(truncated) for the brave project.
[
{
"repo": "chaotic-aur",
"srcname": "brave-nightly-bin",
"binname": "brave-nightly-bin",
"visiblename": "brave-nightly-bin",
"version": "1.38.53",
"licenses": [
"MPL2"
],
"summary": "Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default (nightly binary release).",
"status": "ignored",
"origversion": "1.38.53-1"
},
{
"repo": "aur",
"srcname": "brave",
"binname": "brave",
"visiblename": "brave",
"version": "1.29.79",
"maintainers": [
"alerque@aur"
],
"licenses": [
"custom"
],
"summary": "A web browser that stops ads and trackers by default",
"status": "outdated",
"origversion": "1.29.79-1"
},
...
...
...
{
"repo": "sabayon_for_gentoo",
"srcname": "www-client/brave-bin",
"visiblename": "www-client/brave-bin",
"version": "1.3.114",
"maintainers": [
"fallback-mnt-sabayon@repology"
],
"categories": [
"www-client"
],
"status": "legacy",
"origversion": null
},
{
"repo": "sabayon_for_gentoo",
"srcname": "www-client/brave-bin",
"visiblename": "www-client/brave-bin",
"version": "1.15.75",
"maintainers": [
"fallback-mnt-sabayon@repology"
],
"categories": [
"www-client"
],
"status": "outdated",
"origversion": null
}
]Do look here for a rendered version of the API response.
So how will Pacup know which version to consider to be the latest from this
response? The answer is through filtering the response. In fact the above
response itself is a filtrate of the project filter.
repology=("project: brave")The project filter is the most basic filter and is a must for your pacscript
to work with Pacup.
The project filter just queries repology with it's value (i.e. brave) in
the above code example, which results in the above JSON response being sent
back to Pacup.
When executing pacup --show-repology <pacscript> this filter would be absent
from the Filters panel.
The status filter is an implicit filter that you don't have to specify in the
repology array. It's default value is newest.
Parsed Repology Data
╭────────────────────────────────────── Repology for brave ──────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ╭───────────────────────────────────────── Filters ──────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ {'status': 'newest'} │ │
│ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│ ╭───────────────────────────────────────── Filtrate ─────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ [ │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'aur', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'binname': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.36.116', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'maintainers': ['alerque@aur'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['BSD', 'custom:chromium', 'MPL2'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default (binary release)', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'newest', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': '1:1.36.116-1' │ │
│ │ │ }, │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'chaotic-aur', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'binname': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.36.116', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['MPL2', 'BSD', 'custom:chromium'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default (binary release)', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'newest', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': '1:1.36.116-1' │ │
│ │ │ }, │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'nix_stable_21_11', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'name': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.36.116', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'maintainers': [ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ '[email protected]', │ │
│ │ │ │ │ '[email protected]', │ │
│ │ │ │ │ '[email protected]', │ │
│ │ │ │ │ '[email protected]' │ │
│ │ │ │ ], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['MPL-2.0'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Privacy-oriented browser for Desktop and Laptop computers', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'newest', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': None │ │
│ │ │ }, │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'pclinuxos', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.36.116', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Brave Web Browser', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'categories': ['Networking/WWW'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'newest', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': '1.36.116-1pclos2022' │ │
│ │ │ }, │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'solus', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'binname': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.36.116', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'maintainers': ['[email protected]'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['GPL-2.0-or-later', 'GPL-3.0-or-later', 'MPL-2.0'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'A browser focused on privacy that blocks ads and trackers by default', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'categories': ['network.web.browser'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'newest', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': None │ │
│ │ │ }, │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'solus', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'binname': 'brave-dbginfo', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave-dbginfo', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.36.116', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'maintainers': ['[email protected]'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['GPL-2.0-or-later', 'GPL-3.0-or-later', 'MPL-2.0'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Debug symbols for brave', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'categories': ['debug'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'newest', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': None │ │
│ │ │ } │ │
│ │ ] │ │
│ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│ ╭────────────────────────────── Selected version (most common) ──────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ 1.36.116 │ │
│ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
For most of your pacscripts only using the project filter would be
sufficient, but for more complicated pacscripts you would have to delve into
the advanced filters.
repology=("project: brave" "repo: aur")The repo filter's value is the name of the repository you want to filter, so
applying the above filter would result in the filtrate only containing the
packages from aur.
Parsed Repology Data
╭────────────────────────────────────── Repology for brave ──────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ╭───────────────────────────────────────── Filters ──────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ {'repo': 'aur', 'status': 'newest'} │ │
│ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│ ╭───────────────────────────────────────── Filtrate ─────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ [ │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'aur', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'binname': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.36.116', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'maintainers': ['alerque@aur'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['BSD', 'custom:chromium', 'MPL2'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default (binary release)', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'newest', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': '1:1.36.116-1' │ │
│ │ │ } │ │
│ │ ] │ │
│ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│ ╭────────────────────────────── Selected version (most common) ──────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ 1.36.116 │ │
│ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
repology=("project: brave" "visiblename: brave-nightly-bin")The visiblename filter's value is the "Package Name" column in the Repology
project page. It's useful when you want to track a particular package out of
filtrate.
Parsed Repology Data
╭────────────────────────────────────────── Repology for brave ───────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ ╭────────────────────────────────────────────── Filters ──────────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ {'visiblename': 'brave-nightly-bin', 'status': 'newest'} │ │
│ ╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│ ╭───────────────────────────────────────────── Filtrate ──────────────────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ [ │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'aur', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave-nightly-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'binname': 'brave-nightly-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave-nightly-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.38.59', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'maintainers': ['gregbunk@aur'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['MPL2'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default (nightly binary release).', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'ignored', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': '1.38.59-1' │ │
│ │ │ }, │ │
│ │ │ { │ │
│ │ │ │ 'repo': 'chaotic-aur', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'srcname': 'brave-nightly-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'binname': 'brave-nightly-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'visiblename': 'brave-nightly-bin', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'version': '1.38.59', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'licenses': ['MPL2'], │ │
│ │ │ │ 'summary': 'Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default (nightly binary release).', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'status': 'ignored', │ │
│ │ │ │ 'origversion': '1.38.59-1' │ │
│ │ │ } │ │
│ │ ] │ │
│ ╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
│ ╭────────────────────────────────── Selected version (most common) ───────────────────────────────────╮ │
│ │ 1.38.59 │ │
│ ╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
All the above filters are the ones that you're most likely to use, but just for being complete I've enlisted them here:
-
subrepo: name of subrepository (if applicable; for example, main or contrib or non-free for Debian). -
name,srcname,binname: package name(s) as used in repository - generic one and/or source package name and/or binary package name, whichever is applicable (all fields are optional). -
summary: one-line description of the package.
As you might have guessed the more filters you add the more specific filtrate you get. So why not just use the advanced filters specifically filter a package always? The reason is that in certain circumstances the more filters you add ironically the more inaccurate you become.
Suppose you've used a visiblename filter to filter in a package (let's call
it "A"). This may work right now but it may lead to problems in the future. For
instance when the package "A" gets outdated your pacscript and thus pacup will
still track that outdated package. Even though other packages (that you've
filtered out) might have already been updated.
So, the basic rule of thumb is to always use the basic filters and only use the advanced filters when absolutely necessary.