appstream-generator - Generate AppStream metadata from distribution repositories
Contents
Copyright
Copyright © 2016-2018 Matthias Klumpp
Description
This manual page documents briefly the appstream-generator command.
appstream-generator generates AppStream metadata from the repositories of a software distribution. It
currently supports the following repository formats / distributions: Debian, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, RPM-MD
(Fedora, Mageia).
The generator will produce AppStream collection metadata files in the AppStream YAML or XML format to be
shipped to users, as well as detailed HTML reports about found components and HTML and JSON reports on
issues found while compiling the metadata. It reads .desktop files as well as metainfo files, renders
fonts, scales images, caches screenshots etc. to produce high-quality metadata for AppStream based
software centers and other tools to consume. Usually, appstream-generator is integrated with the existing
software build & delivery workflow of a distribution.
The appstream-generator tool is based on the libappstream library for metadata conversion and analysis.
If you just want to embed AppStream metadata processing into another tool, using libappstream directly is
likely a better choice. The generator tool does some heavy lifting like rendering fonts and scaling
images, which might not be necessary for simple cases.
To use appstream-generator, a asgen-config.json file is required. Its format is described in detail in
theasgen-config.jsondocumentation[1].
The generator supports a wide range of features that can individually configured to fit the needs of
different projects and adjust the generated metadata to specific use cases. Refer to the configuration
file documentation for information on what options are available.
For more information about the AppStream project and the other components which are part of it, take a
look at the AppStream pages at Freedesktop.org[2].
Name
appstream-generator - Generate AppStream metadata from distribution repositories
Notes
1. the asgen-config.json documentation
https://github.com/ximion/appstream-generator/blob/master/docs/asgen-config.md
2. Freedesktop.org
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Distributions/AppStream/
AppStream Generator APPSTREAM-GENERATOR(1)
Options
runSUITE[SECTION]
Process new metadata for the given distribution suite and publish it.
cleanup
Cleanup old/expired metadata and media files from the cache and directories. It is recommended to run
this command every week, or at least every month, depending on how many changes happen in the
software repository.
publishSUITE[SECTION]
Export all metadata and publish reports in the export directories.
You usually do not want to run this task explicitly, because it is already automatically performed by
the run command.
remove-foundSUITE
Drop all valid processed metadata and hints from the selected suite.
forgetPKID
Drop all information we have about this (partial) package-id.
A package-id consists of a name/version/arch triplet. For this command, the version and architecture
can be omitted to forget all packages that match a particular name or name-version combination.
infoPKID
Show information associated with this (full) package-id.
A package-id consists of a name/version/arch triplet.
-w|--workspaceDIR
Define the workspace location.
If this flag is omitted, and no workspace directory is given in the generator configuration file, the
current directory is assumed as the workspace location.
This parameter, if given, overrides any workspace location defined elsewhere.
-c|--configFILE
Define a configuration file.
Explicitly set a generator configuration JSON file. If this flag is omitted, the asgen-config.json
file in the current workspace directory is used.
If no workspace directory is defined in the configuration file itself, the directory it is located in
is used as workspace. This can be overridden by defining a workspace explicitly with -w.
--force
Enforce the command.
--verbose
Show extra debugging information.
--version
Display the version number of appstream-generator.
See Also
appstreamcli (1).
Synopsis
appstream-generator [COMMAND]
