Querying the CTAN Database with XML – List of Packages
The list of packages can be obtained under the URL
The result is an XML file as in the following listing:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE packages SYSTEM 'http://www.ctan.org/xml/1.3/catalogue.dtd'> <packages> <package key="a0poster" name="a0poster" caption="Support for designing posters on large paper" /> <package key="a2ac" name="a2ac" caption="AFM to AFM plus Composites" /> <package key="a2ping" name="a2ping" caption="Advanced PS, PDF, EPS converter" /> <package key="a4" name="a4" caption="Support for A4 paper sizes" /> <package key="a4wide" name="a4wide" caption=""Wide" a4 layout" /> <package key="a5comb" name="a5comb" caption="Support for a5 paper sizes" /> <package key="aaai" name="aaai" caption="AAAI style" /> <package key="aaai-named" name="aaai-named" caption="BibTeX style for AAAI" /> <package key="aastex" name="aastex" caption="Macros for Manuscript Preparation for AAS Journals" /> … </packages>
The list has the outer tag <packages>
.
The packages contained in this list are ordered ascending on the key of the packages.
<package>
-
Each package is contained within the tag
<package>
. This tag has several attributes:key
- This attribute contains the key of the package. This attribute is mandatory.
name
- This attribute contains the name of the package. This attribute is mandatory.
details
- This attribute contains a short descriptive text about the content of the package.
Selecting
The list can be restricted to contain part of the packages only.
The condition is that the key starts with a given string. This string is
specified with the parameter key
.
The following example extracts all packages for which the key starts with the letter n:
Omitting Or Enforcing the Doctype Declaration
The list of licenses may include a doctype declaration. This declaration can
be suppressed with the URL parameter no-dtd
which should be set
to true
as in
A doctype declaration can be enforced with the URL parameter
no-dtd
which should be set to false
in this case.
The default is no-dtd
=false.
Omitting the XML Declaration
The list of licenses starts with an XML declaration. This declaration can
be suppressed with the URL parameter no-xml
which should be
set to true
as in