Is it possible to get the database of packages.debian.org?

[jfr . fg]

I would like to make the package-search on packages.debian.org
available offline on my computer,
because I want to use it for searching sarge-packages
after the release of etch and maybe even after the release of lenny.

I found the web-front-end on cvs, but not the database.

Is the database of packages.debian.org 
available somewhere (svn,cvs or so) to non-developers?


jfr

Re: Is it possible to get the database of packages.debian.org?

[jfr . fg]

> perhaps apt-file may be what you want?

No, neither apt-file nor apt-cache.
I know them both, but I happened to like packages.debian.org best.

So I try to find it, before the release of etch, when sarge becomes oldstable.


jfr

Re: Is it possible to get the database of packages.debian.org?

[jfr . fg]

>In other words, please tell us what information you are really wanting
>out of your search and what the results might look like.

What I like in this search feature is the possibility 
to get all informations immediately on one page,
without having to vary commandline options:

exact name, short and long description, 
other packages related on it, Package Contents, maintainer


the package dpkg-www   http://packages.debian.org/stable/doc/dpkg-www 
is quite similar, but it doesn't allow to search for packages, 
which were never installed on a system or which aren't yet in sources.list.

to write the following in the config-file didn't help:
DEBIAN_CONTENTS="/local-directory/Contents-i386.gz"
LIST_UNAVAILABLE=1


jfr

Re: Is it possible to get the database of packages.debian.org?

[jfr . fg]

>Well, in that case "apt-cache show dpkg-www" 
>will do the trick as shown here:
I must admit that in the extent of information this is not worse.

>What objection is there for that?
It's just a kind of prefering the one and not the other way.
For myself, in _this_ case, commandline is the more circuitous solution.

As synaptic requires root-privileges, I would not really get happy with it,
but dpkg-www seems to be a quite interesting alternative.

Altough, I'm still interested in the database of packages.debian.org
Is there any suggestion on how to find?
Or a reason, not to do it (it might be very large or restricted)?


jfr

Re: Is it possible to get the database of packages.debian.org?

[jfr . fg]

>It gives you a good start to understand 
>why the command line is so powerful.
>Remember, this little script is just a very small example
>which can be expanded upon to nearly zero limits.

I myself wondering, but you convinced me.

It is good to know,that there is a possibilty 
to write something around apt-cache if needed.

So I not need to hurry up 
getting this database before the etch release.

Thanks to you and all for help :-)


jfr