README for Debtags
==================

``debtags`` is used to maintain debtags information on a system.  It allows to
merge the tag data found in the Packages file with, optionally, other tag
sources listed in /etc/debtags/sources.list

The package also ships the vocabulary that describes the tags found in the
Packages file, and can merge it with vocabulary information acquired from other
configured tag sources.

``debtags`` allows to perform various kinds of queries and checks on the tag
database, mostly useful from scripts, possibly in combination with the
``tagcoll`` tool.  For high-level query tools, look at ept-cache, adept and
other package managers.  For a package information index that indexes tags as
well as various useful information to support high-level queries, look at
apt-xapian-index.

The command line tool also allows to perform some scripted editing of the
tags, and to submit a tag patch to the central tag archive.  If you want to use
the debtags tool for contributing to the central tag archive, please disable
the apt tag source in /etc/debtags/sources.list and enable the unreviewed
tag source on Alioth, so that you will make sure you are working with the most
recent version of the archive.


Resources
---------

  Website:

    http://debtags.alioth.debian.org

  Mailing lists:
  
    debtags-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
    http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debtags-devel
      Development and usage discussions
  
    debtags-commits@lists.alioth.debian.org
    http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debtags-commmits
      Postings of subversion logs

  Subversion repository:

    http://svn.debian.org/viewcvs/debtags/
      Browse online
    svn://svn.debian.org/debtags/
      Read-only access
    svn+ssh://alioth.debian.org/svn/debtags/
      Write access


Miscellaneous notes
-------------------

Some analysis techniques:

Consistency checks on facets that should go together::

  # Show all packages which have a tag in uitoolkit but not a tag in interface
  # (same can be repeated for hardware and hwtech, devel and langdevel)
  debtags facetcoll | grep uitoolkit | grep -v interface | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq

  # Count the number of facets
  debtags facetcoll | tagcoll reverse | wc -l

  # Get a list of toplevel facets in a facet hierarchy
  debtags facetcoll | tagcoll hierarchy | cut -f2 -d/ | cut -f1 -d: | sort | uniq


Interesting links:

 * http://www.itconsult.it/knowledge/articoli/detArticoli.asp?ID=18



Author
------

Enrico Zini <enrico@debian.org>
