Certain metainfo files are getting composed without any component type in catalogue data about appstream HOT 13 CLOSED

Yea, that's what I thought too and was asking questions for that.

from appstream.

Reproducer:

{
  "id": "io.qt.qtwebkit.BaseApp",
  "runtime": "org.kde.Platform",
  "sdk": "org.kde.Sdk",
  "runtime-version": "5.15-23.08",
  "modules": [
    {
      "name": "qtwebkit",
      "buildsystem": "simple",
      "build-commands": [
        "install -Dm644 io.qt.qtwebkit.BaseApp.metainfo.xml -t /app/share/metainfo"
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "type": "file",
          "path": "io.qt.qtwebkit.BaseApp.metainfo.xml"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Metainfo file attached: io.qt.qtwebkit.BaseApp.metainfo.txt

from appstream.

Can appstream at least put type=generic in them?

It doesn't have to, this is a valid MetaInfo file. The type attribute is optional, and in its absence, a generic component is assumed.
This is a bug in your parser, not in AppStream.

from appstream.

It doesn't have to, this is a valid MetaInfo file.

That's what it does for a regular application metadata file. So why not here?

from appstream.

It doesn't have to, this is a valid MetaInfo file.

That's what it does for a regular application metadata file. So why not here?

Sorry, what? You mean a type="desktop-application" component turns into a generic component in composed metadata? That should never happen...

from appstream.

I seem to have a loose memory of this application https://github.com/saturneric/GpgFrontend/blob/300b372df756e33dbcf65bbdf0f4bce03e42ec79/resource/appstream/com.bktus.gpgfrontend.appdata.xml#L2-L3 with a composed data of type=generic even if it didn't have a type in metainfo file.

Anyway I didn't know typeless metadata is allowed, which seems weird. What's the difference between typeless and type=generic?

from appstream.

Yes, but that is how this is supposed to be! A component without type is a generic component. This has been like this since AppStream was created.

from appstream.

What's the difference between typeless and type=generic?

There is none. They are the same.

from appstream.

A component without type is a generic component.

So just to clarify, you are saying appstream differs from as-glib by not putting type=generic in the composed catalogue data? (when metainfo file has no type)

If they are the same, is there an issue in putting that explicitly in catalogue data?

Right now catalogue, is split, because as-glib was putting type=generic in catalogue, while appstream is putting none.

from appstream.

If they are the same, is there an issue in putting that explicitly in catalogue data?

It's more data added for no reason other than to make a broken parser happy, which is not a good enough reason for me (and in fact, might just break something else if changed).
The appstream-glib parser should parse both variants fine as well, as this has been like this for basically forever.

from appstream.

The case here never came up before, so nobody thought of handling it. Anyway, thanks. It'll be fixed in the backend one way or the other.

from appstream.

It's just a "if nothing else defined, assume generic" statement in your parser, so definitely shouldn't be too bad. And then it will be compatible with all AppStream data, no matter the source :-) (well, at least in this particular point ^^).

from appstream.

flathub-infra/website#2633 will fix backend

from appstream.