README

This repo contains a PHP class to parse and use the index.xml/index-v1.json/index-v2.json files of an F-Droid repository. I'm using it regularly now for several years now with all three formats, so it should be quite stable – though it's far from being perfect. Not much documentation for now. Feel free to use it with your own projects as long as the license fits.

One goal of this project is to provide a stable API: regardless of which index version you are using, the structures provided via this API should be compatible (with attributes only provided by newer index versions, say v2, just not available with older ones like v1 or v0 (XML)). As newer index versions sometimes also re-organize structures (like v2 did with the localized attributes), this API moves back those attributes to where they had been previously – meaning two things: 1) you can use each of the existing index versions with the same library getting the same structures, and 2) you should be able to update to a newer version of this API easily, taking it as drop-in-replacement without "breaking stuff". If you still want the "newer structures": starting with implementing index-v2 a constant will be checked. If you define FREPP_KEEP_EXTENDED and set it to 1 (currently setting to true would also work, but I reserve the option to use it step-wise in some future version, so better use integers), the newer structures will be kept in parallel. Be aware that with large indexes, the resulting in-memory-object can become quite large, too: with the F-Droid.org index as of June 2023, a print_r() of the applist results in a file of almost 80 MB with, but just about 45 MB without the "extended structures".

To get started, you might wish to take a look at the doc/example.php file which gives a short walk-through. All source code is also documented using the Javadoc style PHPDoc. So take a look at the latter Wikipedia page for possibilities to generate an API reference, if you need it.

Oh: In case you wonder about the name. Originally I've named the project "Prepaf" (Php REpo PArser for Fdroid). But as not even I myself could remember that name, I decided for something simpler: Frepp, which means as much as "Fdroid REpo Parser (library for) PHP". Finally adopted to the F-Droid namespace, it was renamed once more, to php-fdroid.

Notes

This class was intended to be used with a local repository. I'm using it with my own (with a little more than 600 apps in), where speed and processing-time seem fine. With many simultaneous sessions on larger repositories it however becomes quite memory hungry (see „in-memory-object“ above). So with my own repo meanwhile being beyond 1k apps, and F-Droid's beyond 4k, I've moved to using this library to import the structures into a database and have the clients use that instead.
While it will not work with a remote repository, it will work with just the index.xml (or index-v1.json / index-v2.json) downloaded – with a few limitations: as the .apk files are not there then, their timestamps cannot be evaluated for the last-built-time, and if the categories.txt won't be available, it cannot be evaluated either). A quick test with F-Droid's own index.xml and index-v1.json (3,000+ apps at that time) showed speed still seems reasonable.
Special addendum: If e.g. with a major update of fdroidserver, its app cache might get rebuild, that means the date an app was added to the repo gets lost. To take caution for that, you can keep that in the Maintainer Notes block using a line in the format AppAdded: YYYY-MM-DD. The library checks that and takes it with preference.

License

This project uses the GPLv2 license as stated in the LICENSE file.

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You like this library and want to contribute?

Pull/Merge Requests are welcome!
Motivate me e.g. by sending me some mBTC to 1FsfvUGUpoPkLvJboKAnuBXHZ1zN3hbBL1 :)

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