TeX Live Manager: JSON output

With the development of TLCockpit continuing, I found the need for and easy exchange format between the TeX Live Manager tlmgr and frontend programs like TLCockpit. Thus, I have implemented JSON output for the tlmgr info command.

While the format is not 100% stable – I might change some thing – I consider it pretty settled. The output of tlmgr info --data json is a JSON array with JSON objects for each package requested (default is to list all).

[ TLPackageObj, TLPackageObj, ... ]

The structure of the JSON object TLPackageObj reflects the internal Perl hash. Guaranteed to be present keys are name (String) and avilable (Boolean). In case the package is available, there are the following further keys sorted by their type:

• String type: name, shortdesc, longdesc, category, catalogue, containerchecksum, srccontainerchecksum, doccontainerchecksum
• Number type: revision, runsize, docsize, srcsize, containersize, srccontainersize, doccontainersize
• Boolean type: available, installed, relocated
• Array type: runfiles (Strings), docfiles (Strings), srcfiles (Strings), executes (Strings), depends (Strings), postactions (Strings)
• Object type:
  • binfiles: keys are architecture names, values are arrays of strings (list of binfiles)
  • binsize: keys are architecture names, values or numbers
  • docfiledata: keys are docfile names, values are objects with optional keys details and lang
  • cataloguedata: optional keys aare topics, version, license, ctan, date, values are all strings

A rather long example showing the output for the package latex, formatted with json_pp and having the list of files and the long description shortened:

[
   {
      "installed" : true,
      "doccontainerchecksum" : "5bdfea6b85c431a0af2abc8f8df160b297ad73f6a324ca88df990f01f24611c9ae80d2f6d12c7b3767308fbe3de3fca3d11664b923ea4080fb13fd056a1d0c3d",
      "docfiles" : [
         "texmf-dist/doc/latex/base/README.txt",
         ....
         "texmf-dist/doc/latex/base/webcomp.pdf"
      ],
      "containersize" : 163892,
      "depends" : [
         "luatex",
         "pdftex",
         "latexconfig",
         "latex-fonts"
      ],
      "runsize" : 414,
      "relocated" : false,
      "doccontainersize" : 12812184,
      "srcsize" : 752,
      "revision" : 43813,
      "srcfiles" : [
         "texmf-dist/source/latex/base/alltt.dtx",
         ....
         "texmf-dist/source/latex/base/utf8ienc.dtx"
      ],
      "category" : "Package",
      "cataloguedata" : {
         "version" : "2017/01/01 PL1",
         "topics" : "format",
         "license" : "lppl1.3",
         "date" : "2017-01-25 23:33:57 +0100"
      },
      "srccontainerchecksum" : "1d145b567cf48d6ee71582a1f329fe5cf002d6259269a71d2e4a69e6e6bd65abeb92461d31d7137f3803503534282bc0c5546e5d2d1aa2604e896e607c53b041",
      "postactions" : [],
      "binsize" : {},
      "longdesc" : "LaTeX is a widely-used macro package for TeX, [...]",
      "srccontainersize" : 516036,
      "containerchecksum" : "af0ac85f89b7620eb7699c8bca6348f8913352c473af1056b7a90f28567d3f3e21d60be1f44e056107766b1dce8d87d367e7f8a82f777d565a2d4597feb24558",
      "executes" : [],
      "binfiles" : {},
      "name" : "latex",
      "catalogue" : null,
      "docsize" : 3799,
      "available" : true,
      "runfiles" : [
         "texmf-dist/makeindex/latex/gglo.ist",
         ...
         "texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/x2enc.dfu"
      ],
      "shortdesc" : "A TeX macro package that defines LaTeX"
   }
]

What is currently not available via tlmgr info and thus also not via the JSON output is access to virtual TeX Live databases with several member databases (multiple repositories). I am thinking about how to incorporate this information.

These changes are currently available in the tlcritical repository, but will enter proper TeX Live repositories soon.

Using this JSON output I will rewrite the current TLCockpit tlmgr interface to display more complete information.