Arch Linux User Repository

xidel package has been merged into xidel-bin, and xidel-bin updated to the latest 0.9.9 build with Linux binaries available at sourceforge.

Hi @fbrennan, I am the maintainer of xidel AUR package and I've received calls to merge into xidel-bin. Indeed, my package is based on binaries just like this one and, even though it was first on AUR, it was not correctly named. I should have registered it as xidel-bin in the first place. I would like to coordinate my next steps with you. I am happy to merge into xidel-bin if you don't mind, however I can see that you have not followed the 0.9.9 nightly release sequence, while I have. How would you feel about updating your package to the latest 0.9.9 release? I feel like some xidel users may depend on 0.9.9 features being available, and going back could result in issues for them.

Some notes to everyone, and a call to action to the maintainer of this "xidel" PKGBUILD

• Xidel hasnt seen a proper release in more than 6 years.

The last official release is Xidel 0.9.8, but a Xidel 0.9.9 development version is published
irregularly for Windows, Linux (>= Ubuntu 20.10), Android and Windows, Linux (Ubuntu 20.04) and
Mac as a preview for the next release. It is recommended to use the 0.9.9 version, since it
contains bug fixes, is more performant, and partially supports XPath/XQuery 3.1. Thereby most of
the JSONiq syntax has been replaced by the XPath 3.1 JSON syntax. It will be published
officially, once all of XPath/XQuery 3.1 is implemented.

I, personally, find that confusing and unecessary.

• Xidel developer does keep touching the sourceforge mercurial repo (2023), https://videlibri.sourceforge.net/xidel.html

He also maintains a couple of "mirrors"

The source history is stored in a mercurial repository together with the VideLibri source and
dependencies, licensed as GPLv3+. There are mirrors on GitHub Build status and GitLab. These
mirrors have the Xidel source only, in order to compile it you need to download the dependencies
from their own repositories first. Or use the above source tarball, which also contains

Again, in my personal opinion, frankenstein confusing mirrors, https://gitlab.com/benito/xidel, https://github.com/benibela/xidel/

Arch users who do want to use xidel and do insist on building from source, can always use,

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xidel-git

Remember that modern xml and html parsing is a complicated task and can be a security risk.

Anyway, and since I am also in need for a tool like xidel, these might be worthy considering. There are many other well maintained, official, modern alternatives, that can do similarj job

Official packages, "htmlq", "hq", and the classics "xmlstarlet" and "xmllint (libxml2).

On the AUR, "pup" (used to be official) etc....

levitsky commented on 2023-08-19 22:28 (UTC) (edited on 2023-08-19 22:29 (UTC) by levitsky)
....
...  I merge this one into xidel-bin?
....

@levitsky why havent you done this yet ?

It is only confusing users.

You either,

Merge your "xidel" PKGBUILD with the "xidel-bin" PKGBUILD. And start collaborating with fbrennan. And remove your "xidel" from the AUR.

Or,

you do keep your "xidel", but you do the work to turn it into a real "build from source" PKGBUILD.

Your are indeed the first one to have ever made a xidel in the AUR:

AUR URL                       : https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xidel-bin
First Submitted               : Mon 24 Nov 2014 08:39:10 PM WET
Maintainer                    : levitsky

AUR URL                       : https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xidel-bin
First Submitted               : Thu 12 Nov 2020 05:32:46 PM WET
Maintainer                    : fbrennan

But fbrennan then later, took the name "xidel-bin". That's the name you should have chosen in 2014.

Your PKGBUILD "xidel" was always wrongly named.

It is not a package that downloads a released source archive https://...tar.gz version and then compiles it. It is a package that downloads a released precompiled binary https://..tar.gz and just simply copies it to /usr/bin.

It should never have been named "xidel" in the first place.

This is according to the AUR guidelins in the wiki (xyz, xyz-git, xyz-bin etc)

Please collaborate , and avoid reduplicating efforts. Instead of confusing Arch users.

Thanks in advance.

Hello Lev thanks for your reply, orphan request revoked, it is quite late for me now, we'll discuss in the next days, for the moment leave the things as they are :)

@FabioLolix Sorry for not responding to your comment earlier. I was looking at sourceforge downloads and didn't find the sources there. Also I was using the checksums sourceforge provided because that seemed more reliable than generating my own.

I see I can start building from Github but the author doesn't mark these "nightly" 0.9.9 releases there in any way so then it would make sense to do it in a -git package? As far as I understand, xidel stopped at 0.9.8 officially.

Given the above and your orphan request, I suggest that maybe you just submit a xidel-git package and I merge this one into xidel-bin?

Hello, no need to install licenses like GPL3 which are in the licenses package and the path is "${pkgdir}/usr/share/licenses/${pkgname}"

I adopted this package and fixed that.

Hello,

• please build from source
• please use sha256sums or higher (sha512sums, b2sums) for hash check

source contains a URL and does not work because there is a <space> in the URL and it is not urlencoded.

curl: (3) URL using bad/illegal format or missing URL

Before Fix:

source=("${_pkgname}-${pkgver}.deb::${_url_source}/files/${_pkgname^}/${_pkgname^} ${pkgver}/${_pkgname}_${pkgver}-1_amd64.deb/download")

After Fix:

source=("${_pkgname}-${pkgver}.deb::${_url_source}/files/${_pkgname^}/${_pkgname^}%20${pkgver}/${_pkgname}_${pkgver}-1_amd64.deb/download")

Xidel 0.9.9 (20210529.7880.e0cb7e033b4b) is broken: https://github.com/benibela/xidel/issues/70

xidel-0.9.9.20210620.7908.1f19357dcdf2 has been released.