[sword-devel] InstallMgr limitation

[DM Smith]

I have written a quick and dirty perl program that creates an xml file 
containing the information.
You can see the perl program here:
    http://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop/listing.pl
and its output here:
    http://www.crosswire.org/bibledesktop/modules.xml

The reason I wrote the output in xml is that it is my preferred output, 
it is less sensitive to changes, there are standard parsers that can be 
used and xslt can be used to "grep" out what is needed or convert it 
into another useful format.

If this would be generally useful, then it should be kept in a general 
place and its output put in a general place.
Otherwise, I will put it into JSword's "space" and use it from there.

Either way, I'll clean up the program and its output.

Comments and suggestions appreciated.

DM Smith wrote:

> One of the outstanding requests that we have for BibleDesktop/JSword 
> is to provide download sizes in the installer's listing of modules. At 
> this time we download mods.d.tar.gz and from that we figure out what 
> zips are available and when the user selects a module, we get the zip 
> size and ask the user if they want to download something that big.
>
> One of the other outstanding requests is that we provide the user with 
> the scope of the module.
>
> The problem that I have with an ls-lR file is that the listing changes 
> periodically as the operating system changes. Since the output is flat 
> text a custom parser needs to be written and that is susceptible to 
> breaking. If this is the route that people want to go, I would be 
> willing to write a perl or java program that would produce a file that 
> has a regular, unchanging output, that would provide the entire listing.
>
> As I see it there are several parts for each module:
> its module name
> its download size (for both the tar.gz and zip)
> the names and sizes of each part when on the local file system
>
> So, yes, BibleDesktop/JSword would use it.
>
> Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
>
>>> That said, the listing has some advantages:
>>> 1) It allows one to know the sizes of the files prior to downloading 
>>> the file.
>>> 2) It allows one to know the scope of the work (nt only, ot only, ot 
>>> and nt, apocrypha)
>>
>> A real FTP connection that can list files has these same 2 advantages :)
>>
>> I don't have an objection to including an ls-lR file at the base of 
>> the modules directory, if that would help.  It is one file and will 
>> not be downloaded or archived with the autopackager into each module 
>> (and promises nothing about the module file content)
>>
>> Having said this.  Would anyone REALLY use an ls-lR file?  I would 
>> object to code in InstallMgr's FTP driver using this.  If your FTP 
>> connection is on crack, then you can't use the InstallMgr FTP driver. 
>> We don't support broken FTP connections.  I wouldn't object to a new 
>> HTTP driver being added to InstallMgr that might use this ls-lR file. 
>> Anyone want to write it?
>>
>>     -Troy.
>>
>>> As to a common name, it is frequent to find a file with the name 
>>> ls-lR (often compressed as ls-lR.gz) on unix backed file systems 
>>> that contains a recursive long listing of the directory.
>>>
>>> It would be very easy to create a cron job to create the files.
>>>
>>>
>>> Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
>>>
>>>> Joachim,
>>>>     I'm not sure exactly what you are saying, but let me repeat it 
>>>> and see if I kindof understand:
>>>>
>>>> Someone is using an FTP proxy setup which doesn't allow them to 
>>>> list files on the remote server?  And you'd like us to support that 
>>>> setup by maintaining file list catalog files in each module directory.
>>>>
>>>> If this is the case.  I don't think I am willing to support such a 
>>>> non-standard FTP setup that can't work with anything else.  How can 
>>>> someone really use FTP efficiently with any other server without 
>>>> being able to show file names?  I guess for grabbing a known file 
>>>> name, but that isn't really a functional FTP proxy.  InstallMgr 
>>>> works over FTP. If you want to use it, then you have to have 
>>>> working FTP access (via a proxy or whatever).  The work to maintain 
>>>> module file lists inside an extra file for every module (even 
>>>> though it can be automated) is more work that I am willing to do to 
>>>> support such a fringe setup.  What do you think?
>>>>
>>>>     -Troy.
>>>>
>>>> Joachim Ansorg wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi guys,
>>>>> I noticed a limitation in the InstallMgr component.
>>>>> If the used FTPTransport instance uses a proxy then dir listing on 
>>>>> the FTP server are not possible if a http proxy is used (which is 
>>>>> most often used, IMHO).
>>>>> Is it possible to have .mod_listing (or whatever name does fit) 
>>>>> for each module in it's data dir which contains the recursive 
>>>>> listing with the file sizes?
>>>>>
>>>>> Joachim
>>>>