channels

Hello all, First of all, PEAR 1.3.x is now in the PEAR_1_3 branch of pear-core in cvs. All stable code will go in that branch. Next, I've committed all of my work on channels to cvs in HEAD of pear-core (whew!). The unit tests in HEAD are built specifically to be installed using the package-PEARtests.xml in the tests/ directory. Happy channeling. I will be around for only a few days and then off again for a few weeks. It's a good life, if a bit too busy for PEAR. Ironic that I'm so busy when the rest of you seem to be freeing up :). New work in the core includes implementing the rudimentary beginnings of Tomas Cox's validation package idea. Earlier versions used the <packagenameregex> field in channel.xml to specify another regular expression to use for a non-PEAR-like channel. For instance, zzoss allows periods (.) in the package name, but the pear installer would error out as an invalid package name. This has been replaced by a new tag <validatepackage> format: <validatepackage version="1.4">PackageName</validatepackage> the validation package must be located on the channel server defined by the <server> tag in the channel.xml, and must have a PEAR-standard package name. It also must extend the PEAR_Validate class (found in PEAR/Validate.php), or at least implement its API. In addition, it must be includeable by replacing the _ with / (as in Foo_Validate must be in Foo/Validate.php). Of course, this is just my idea of how to do it, so please feel free to change it, but be forewarned - the validation is peppered all through PEAR_Downloader, so any changes must be realized there as well. I've worked a bit on a generic server package that can be used to quickly set up a PEAR channel server, and finishing that will be my next task. Greg