bug#42291: data service: Show list of files and allow qeuerying

[Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net>]

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Hartmut Goebel <h.goebel@crazy-compilers.com> writes:

> Serverity: wishlist
> I often find myself checking the content of a package. For this I
> would like to be able to inspect the list of files in a package, or
> even query for a specific file.
>
> This is much like Debian does in "list of files" for each package
> (e.g. <https://packages.debian.org/en/buster/amd64/ejabberd-mod-cron/filelist>)
> and with "Search the contents of packages"
> <https://www.debian.org/distrib/packages#search_contents>
>
> Many thanks :-)

Hi Hartmut,

So, I'm in total agreement that this data would be great to have, but so
far I've not been imagining meeting the need to search the files or
contents of store items through the Guix Data Service.

The contents of a package can also be viewed as the contents of a
directory in the store. The Guix Data Service does know about nars, but
just the information in the narinfo file.

What I've had in mind for a while is a service that listens to the Guix
Data Service for new nars, downloads them, indexes them (either just the
files, or file contents too), and then provides a search interface over
this data. It's a little tricky, as you have to decide what to do about
the build reproducibility problem, if a package doesn't build
reproducibly, it's possible to get multiple different lists of files for
the same package.

At the moment, I'm looking at the "building things" area, but I'm still
interested in this.

Thanks,

Chris

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