Advanced search

[ionelmc]

Sorry if this has been asked before.

I would be really nice if I could make metadata searches like these on PyPI:

• Give me all packages that depend on X
• Give me all packages that don't depend on Y
• Give me all packages that depend on X>1.2.3
• Give me all packages that don't depend on Y<1.2.3
• Give me all packages that have classifier A :: B :: C
• Give me all packages that "work" on Python X.Y (but there are multiple ways to declare compatibility? maybe some compound index)
• Give me all package that have a release after 2015-01-02

And so on ...

[ionelmc]

Not really. Use-case: give me all packages that do X but don't depend on Y, cause Y is broken/whatever.

I frequently look for packages that don't have heavy dependencies. Eg: I want a plotting library that don't depend on matplotlib.

To make the banana analogy: you asked for a banana, you got it, but there's a monkey and the whole forest attached to that banana.

[alexwlchan]

Another criteria that would be useful:

• Give me all packages that are available under license L
• Give me all packages that are available under licenses other than L

[ionelmc]

Another idea:

• Give me all packages that don't have license L and don't have any dependencies with license L (the "can't use GPL" problem many people have)

[toddrjen]

I think some of these would be easier if there was a boolean search that could be used to find packages that don't match a particular result. So rather than:

• Give me all packages that are available under license L
• Give me all packages that are available under licenses other than L

You could just have

• Give me all packages that are available under license L

And use the boolean "not" operator to exclude results matching that.

[brainwane]

A related issue about exclusion in search: #1971.

[brainwane]

@waseem18 is writing up a bit of a proposal on how to do this.

[brainwane]

@waseem18 it would be great to get to see your work in progress! Feel free to share it in a GitHub gist and link to it here, or put it right into a comment. It's fine if it's rough.

[waseem18]

@brainwane I'll put up a comment about what and how and then start on after getting feedback.

[waseem18]

Below is a rough UI screen on how Advanced Search might look like.

• I tried placing the Advanced Search button/link below Filter projects section. As this is a rough UI this might not be the best place to have the link and we can discuss it's placement.
• Section on right contains Advanced Search title and below that some search options and their respective input elements. UI for this section can also be improved.
• Search by entry point #1677 Can also be put up in Advanced Search section.
• We can start with implementing Search by entry point #1677 and later on proceeding with the next options.

@brainwane @nlhkabu Will be happy to receive your feedback / suggestions on this.