Re: debian/watch problem due to http://code.google.com download page's link format change
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 06:48:41PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 05:16:08PM +0800, Asias He wrote:
> > Hi, All
> >
> > Recently, code.google.com changed the download page link format.
> > As a result, the old debian/watch file in packages whose upstream source code
> > hosted on code.google.com did work anymore.
> >
> > Take the ibus project for example:
> > $ cat ibus/debian/watch
> > version=3
> > http://code.google.com/p/ibus/downloads/list \
> > http://ibus.googlecode.com/files/ibus-([0-9].*)\.tar\.gz
> >
> > The new download page contain the "detail" link, one has to follow
> > the new "detail" link in order to find the real download url.
> > something like this:
> > http://code.google.com/p/ibus/downloads/list
> > http://code.google.com/p/ibus/downloads/detail?name=ibus-1.3.3.tar.gz&can=2&q=
> > http://ibus.googlecode.com/files/ibus-1.3.3.tar.gz
> >
> > I believe this problem affects all the packages whose upstream source
> > code is hosted on code.google.com.
> >
> > Is there an easy way to deal this.
>
> I guess we need to generarize situation on sf.net to other popular
> download sites. This data is used mainly by uscan program.
>
> When the watch file has an URL matching with the Perl regexp
> "^http://sf\.net/";, the uscan program substitutes it with
> "http://qa.debian.org/watch/sf.php/"; and then applies this rule. The URL
> redirector service at this http://qa.debian.org/ is designed to offer a
> stable redirect service to the desired file for the watch file having
> "http://sf.net/project/tar-name-(.+)\.tar\.gz". This solves issues
> related to the periodically changing URL there.
>
> So if someone impliment similar URL redirector service, we can have
> stable link.
>
> Until then, we need to keep up each watch file manually.
I just checked and there's no open bug against code.google.com to
restore the old, plain style links. Note they do have a direct download
link, but now it's obfuscated behind a javascript "onclick" method.
Wouldn't it be better to ask and see if they're willing to either
restore the old link or remove the javascript bit, instead of going
ahead with a workaround?
regards,
iustin
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