From: Anthony Bryan <anthonybryan@...>
Date: 2008-01-06T08:22:12+09:00
Subject: Metalink (XML) library for Ruby?

Hi,

Would anyone be interested in working on a Metalink library for Ruby?
There's already one for PHP & Python (
http://code.google.com/p/metalink-library/ ).

Metalink is a simple XML format for describing downloads. Most
.metalink files contain mirror lists/p2p (the various ways you can get
a file) and checksums (for file verification). They're frequently used
for large files like ISOs and also contain chunk checksums for
repairing downloads and other info. But they're also used by smaller
things like cURL, OpenOffice.org, podcasts, videos, and other stuff.

Close to 20 download programs support Metalink. There's more info at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalink

Here's an example ruby-1.8.6-p111.tar.gz.metalink (most would contain
more mirrors, and maybe a description):

Ruby 1.8.6-p111 (md5: c36e011733a3a3be6f43ba27b7cd7485)

 <metalink version="3.0" xmlns="http://metalinker.org">
   <files>
     <file name="ruby-1.8.6-p111.tar.gz">
     <verification>
       <hash type="md5">c36e011733a3a3be6f43ba27b7cd7485</hash>
     </verification>
     <resources>
       <url type="ftp" location="us"
preference="100">ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.8/ruby-1.8.6-p111.tar.gz</url>
     </resources>
     </file>
   </files>
 </metalink>

Thanks,
-- 
(( Anthony Bryan ... Metalink [ http://www.metalinker.org ]
  )) Easier, More Reliable, Self Healing Downloads