[Catalog-sig] Request: Interface to index of package-metadata

["Martin v. Löwis"]

> Usually, if all the metadata is readily available (ie. without
> downloading all packages) the package manager periodically (at most
> once a day - typically once a week or less) synchronises all
> "repositories" (containing all necessary package metadata). This
> means the metadata is stored on the user's disk for further use. 
> Considering the server load, synchronising seems not to be an option
> at the moment (IMHO) since this would mean one request for each
> package in the repository.

Thanks for the explicit scenario; it is fortunately not the
case that you would have to download all package and version
information each weak.

Instead, I recommend to use the changelog method, to find out
all changes since the last week.

> I hope this clears things up a bit.

Indeed it does. For synchronization, you shouldn't at all
consider downloading all information again repeatedly. Instead,
try using incremental update methods as much as possible.

With the changelog method, daily updates become much more
reasonable; some sites query the changelog every minute
(and it is then typically empty).

Regards,
Martin