This page describes a simple way to publish data files using DDE.
In short
On merkel:
cat > /srv/dde.debian.net/public/sandbox/$USER.yaml <<EOT build: buildd: http://buildd.debian.org/pkg.cgi?maint=$USER@debian.org igloo: http://oldpeople.debian.org/~igloo/status.php?email=$USER%40debian.org&thin=on svnbuildstat: http://svnbuildstat.debian.net/packages/list/$USER@debian.org qa: lintian: http://lintian.debian.org/maintainer/$USER@debian.org.html lintianfull: http://lintian.debian.org/full/$USER@debian.org.html dehs: http://dehs.alioth.debian.org/report.php?login=$USER@debian.org debtags: http://debtags.alioth.debian.org/todo.html?maint=$USER@debian.org membership: db: http://db.debian.org/search.cgi?uid=$USER&dosearch=Search alioth: http://alioth.debian.org/users/$USER/ EOT
You should then see your data published under http://dde.debian.net/dde/q/sandbox/$USER.
You can put any file in YAML, JSON or pickle format, with extension .yaml, .json or .pickle accordingly.
You can organise file names and directories under /srv/dde.debian.net/public as you see fit, for example:
Data file |
Is published at |
foo.yaml |
|
dir/foo.json |
The content of the file can be any arbitrary combination of dictionaries, lists or scalars. Entries of a dictionary automatically create subnodes, allowing to access only parts of the dictionary.
Adding documentation
DDE likes to describe the data that it contains, and you can help it.
To document the meaning of a directory, create a .doc file inside it containing normal UTF-8 text.
To document the contents of a data file, create another file with extension .doc.[FORMAT] next to your normal data file. The file should contain a data structure with the documentation of every node, for example:
cat > /srv/dde.debian.net/public/sandbox/$USER.doc.yaml <<EOT ".": Information about $USER@debian.org build: ".": Pages with build status of packages buildd: link to buildd.debian.org Co-maintainers are not listed igloo: link to igloo's buildd statistics svnbuildstat: link to svn build statistics qa: ".": Quality Assurance pages lintian: Lintian reports lintianfull: Full Lintian reports, including "info"-level messages dehs: Debian External Health Status debtags: Debtags QA page membership: db: db.debian.org user information alioth: alioth user page EOT
There are two special node names:
"." documents the current node
"*" documents all child nodes for which no specific documentation has been found
There is only one convention for the contents of the documentation:
- One line with short description
- (one empty line)
- Long description as you please
Documentation is optional, but will greatly help people to understand the data that you are publishing.
Tips & tricks
Use /srv/dde.debian.net/public/sandbox to experiment at will.
- Try to keep the hierarchy clean and well structured.
- If you see an existing directory where your data seem to fit, check its documentation in the .doc file to make sure that the author's purpose matches yours.
- Conversely, when you are creating a new subdirectory, document it and you can set a standard for others to follow.
- Feel free to contact the owner of some directory or file if needed: files and directory are owned by their creators, so it is easy to find out who is in charge of them.
- Please publish online the software that you use to generate the data, and document its location in the data documentation: this will allow other people to review your software, or to keep maintaining it in case you don't have time anymore.
- If you remove a file or add a .doc.FORMAT file, it may take some time for the changes to show in DDE.
See also: