Web Interface

A web interface is implemented over a simple store. The interface is available through the python.org domain, either directly or as packages.python.org.

The store has columns for all metadata fields. The (name, version) double is used as a uniqueness key. Additional submissions for an existing (name, version) will result in an update operation.

The web interface implements the following commands/interfaces:

index

Lists known packages, optionally filtered. An additional HTML page, search, presents a form to the user which is used to customise the index view. The index will include a browsing interface like that presented in the Trove interface design section 4.3. The results will be paginated, sorted alphabetically and only showing the most recent version. The most recent version information will be determined using the Distutils LooseVersion class.

display

Displays information about the package. All fields are displayed as plain text. The "url" (or "home_page") field is hyperlinked.

submit

Accepts a POST submission of metadata about a package. The "name" and "version" fields are mandatory, as they uniquely identify an entry in the index. Submit will automatically determine whether to create a new entry or update an existing entry. The metadata is checked for correctness where appropriate - specifically the Trove discriminators are compared with the allowed set. An update will update all information about the package based on the new submitted information.

There will also be a submit/edit form that will allow manual submission and updating for those who do not use Distutils.

submit_pkg_info

Accepts a POST submission of a PKG-INFO file and performs the same function as the submit interface.

user

Registers a new user with the index. Requires username, password and email address. Passwords will be stored in the index database as SHA hashes. If the username already exists in the database:

1. If valid HTTP Basic authentication is provided, the password and email address are updated with the submission information, or
2. If no valid authentication is provided, the user is informed that the login is already taken.

Registration will be a three-step process, involving:

1. User submission of details via the Distutils register command or through the web,
2. Index server sending email to the user's email address with a URL to visit to confirm registration with a random one-time key, and
3. User visits URL with the key and confirms registration.

roles

An interface for changing user Role assignments.

password_reset

Using a supplied email address as the key, this resets a user's password and sends an email with the new password to the user.

The submit command will require HTTP Basic authentication, preferably over an HTTPS connection.

The server interface will indicate success or failure of the commands through a subset of the standard HTTP response codes:

User Roles

Three user Roles will be assignable to users:

Owner

Owns a package name, may assign Maintainer Role for that name. The first user to register information about a package is deemed Owner of the package name. The Admin user may change this if necessary. May submit updates for the package name.

Maintainer

Can submit and update info for a particular package name.

Admin

Can assign Owner Role and edit user details. Not specific to a package name.

Index Storage (Schema)

The index is stored in a set of relational database tables:

packages

Lists package names and holds package-level metadata (currently just the stable release version)

releases

Each package has an entry in releases for each version of the package that is released. A row holds the bulk of the information given in the package's PKG-INFO file. There is one row for each package (name, version).

trove_discriminators

Lists the Trove discriminator text and assigns each one a unique ID.

release_discriminators

Each entry maps a package (name, version) to a discriminator_id. We map to releases instead of packages because the set of discriminators may change between releases.

journals

Holds information about changes to package information in the index. Changes to the packages, releases, roles, and release_discriminators tables are listed here by package name and version if the change is release-specific.

users

Holds our user database - user name, email address and password.

roles

Maps user_name and role_name to a package_name.

An additional table, rego_otk holds the One Time Keys generated during registration and is not interesting in the scope of the index itself.

Distutils register Command

An additional Distutils command, register, is implemented which posts the package metadata to the central index. The register command automatically handles user registration; the user is presented with three options:

1. login and submit package information
2. register as a new packager
3. send password reminder email

On systems where the $HOME environment variable is set, the user will be prompted at exit to save their username/password to a file in their $HOME directory in the file .pypirc.

Notification of changes to a package entry will be sent to all users who have submitted information about the package. That is, the original submitter and any subsequent updaters.

The register command will include a --verify option which performs a test submission to the index without actually committing the data. The index will perform its submission verification checks as usual and report any errors it would have reported during a normal submission. This is useful for verifying correctness of Trove discriminators.

Distutils Trove Classification

The Trove concept of discrimination will be added to the metadata set available to package authors through the new attribute "classifiers". The list of classifiers will be available through the web, and added to the package like so:

setup(
    name = "roundup",
    version = __version__,
    classifiers = [
        'Development Status :: 4 - Beta',
        'Environment :: Console',
        'Environment :: Web Environment',
        'Intended Audience :: End Users/Desktop',
        'Intended Audience :: Developers',
        'Intended Audience :: System Administrators',
        'License :: OSI Approved :: Python Software Foundation License',
        'Operating System :: MacOS :: MacOS X',
        'Operating System :: Microsoft :: Windows',
        'Operating System :: POSIX',
        'Programming Language :: Python',
        'Topic :: Communications :: Email',
        'Topic :: Office/Business',
        'Topic :: Software Development :: Bug Tracking',
    ],
    url = 'http://sourceforge.net/projects/roundup/',
    ...
)

It was decided that strings would be used for the classification entries due to the deep nesting that would be involved in a more formal Python structure.

The original Trove specification that classification namespaces be separated by slashes ("/") unfortunately collides with many of the names having slashes in them (e.g. "OS/2"). The double-colon solution (" :: ") implemented by SourceForge and FreshMeat gets around this limitation.

The list of classification values on the module index has been merged from FreshMeat and SourceForge (with their permission). This list will be made available both through the web interface and through the register command's --list-classifiers option as a text list which may then be copied to the setup.py file. The register command's --verify option will check classifiers values against the server's list.

Unfortunately, the addition of the "classifiers" property is not backwards-compatible. A setup.py file using it will not work under Python 2.1.3. It is hoped that a bug-fix release of Python 2.2 (most likely 2.2.3) will relax the argument checking of the setup() command to allow new keywords, even if they're not actually used. It is preferable that a warning be produced, rather than a show-stopping error. The use of the new keyword should be discouraged in situations where the package is advertised as being compatible with python versions earlier than 2.2.3 or 2.3.

In the PKG-INFO, the classifiers list items will appear as individual Classifier: entries:

Name: roundup
Version: 0.5.2
Classifier: Development Status :: 4 - Beta
Classifier: Environment :: Console (Text Based)
            .
            .
Classifier: Topic :: Software Development :: Bug Tracking
Url: http://sourceforge.net/projects/roundup/