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4. Gentoo Metadata
Content:
4.a. Why the need for metadata.xml?
The metadata.xml file has as its purpose to give extra information about
ebuilds. The metadata.xml file should exist in every package directory.
A skel file can be found as skel.metadata.xml in the portage tree.
Note:
Please run xmllint --valid metadata.xml before committing a
metadata.xml file. We hope to add support for metadata.xml to
repoman soon.
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4.b. Metadata Structure
A metadata.xml file can contain a number of tags:
| tag |
description |
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<pkgmetadata>
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This is the root element of the metadata.xml file. It has no attributes.
Its required subtag is: <herd>. Further the following
subtags are allowed: <email> for a general herd email
address, <maintainer>, and
<longdescription>.
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<herd>
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There must at least be one herd subtag. The contents of this tag should be
the name of be a herd as specified in the herds.xml
file. It must occur at least once.
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<maintainer>
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Besides being member of a herd, a package can also be maintained directly.
The maintainers of a package can be specified with the
<maintainer> tag. This tag has one required subtag:
<email>. It has two optional subtags:
<name>, and <description>.
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| <email> |
This contains the e-mail address of the maintainer. It is required.
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| <name> |
This contains freetext with the name of the maintainer. It is optional.
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| <description> |
The description tag contains a description of the maintainership, or for
example a remark that someone interested can take over the maintainership.
It is optional.
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| <longdescription> |
This tag contains a description of the package. This is to augment the
DESCRIPTION field in the ebuilds themselves.
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There are also some attributes that can be used with these tags. They are all
optional:
| attribute |
tags |
description |
| lang |
<description>, <longdescription>
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In every case where a description is required, there must be at least
an english description. If an additional description in another language is
given, this attribute is used to specify the language used. The format is
a two-character country code.
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| restrict |
<herd>, <maintainer>,
<longdescription>
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The restrict attribute allows to restrict the application of certain tags
to certain versions of a package. When this attribute is used, a tag
without this attribute must also exist. That tag without the restrict
attribute will serve as the default. The format of the restrict attribute
is that of the DEPEND flag, except that "<" and
">" need to be specified by < and >.
For example in the db package
restrict=">=sys-libs/db-3.2.9-r5"
on the maintainer tag shows that I'm currently maintaining all versions
bigger then 3.2.9-r5.
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4.c. Metadata Examples
First Example
In this first example we provide you with the metadata.xml for
OpenOffice of which the ebuilds are completely managed by a herd called
openoffice:
Code Listing 1: Herd-managed package |
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE pkgmetadata SYSTEM "http://www.gentoo.org/dtd/metadata.dtd">
<pkgmetadata>
<herd>openoffice</herd>
<longdescription>
OpenOffice is the opensource version of staroffice.
This ebuild allows you to compile it yourself. Unfortunately this
compilation can take up to a day depending on the speed of your
computer. It will however make a snappier openoffice than the binary
version.
</longdescription>
</pkgmetadata>
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The openoffice herd is defined in herds.xml by the
Gentoo Metastructure Project:
Note:
This example may be outdated when you read it. It's just an example!
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Code Listing 2: OpenOffice Herd Example |
<herd>
<name>openoffice</name>
<email>openoffice@gentoo.org</email>
<description>openoffice related packages</description>
<maintainer><email>pauldv@gentoo.org</email></maintainer>
<maintainer><email>brad@gentoo.org</email></maintainer>
</herd>
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If you want to add (or remove) yourself from a herd, edit herds.xml
located in [gentoo]/misc in Gentoo's CVS repository. Make sure you
know the e-mail alias the herd listens to (for instance the "sound" herd has
sound@gentoo.org) and add yourself to the
alias (by editing /var/mail/alias/misc/<alias name> on
dev.gentoo.org).
Second Example
As second example we view the metadata.xml of mirrorselect.
This ebuild is maintained by the tools-portage herd, but has a separate
maintainer.
Code Listing 3: Herd & individually maintained package |
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE pkgmetadata SYSTEM "http://www.gentoo.org/dtd/metadata.dtd">
<pkgmetadata>
<herd>tools-portage</herd>
<maintainer>
<email>johnm@gentoo.org</email>
<name>John Mylchreest</name>
</maintainer>
<longdescription>
This utility is used to select the fastest mirror (distfiles) and provide a
nicer front-end for mirror selection (both rsync + distfiles) to a user.
</longdescription>
</pkgmetadata>
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The contents of this document are licensed under the
Creative Commons - Attribution / Share Alike
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