Re: [enhancement request] goals to programmatically parse output ( -o or -a)

[Steven M. Schweda]

From: Thomas Harding

> - all outputs lines will uses semicolumn (;) separated fields

   And this won't cause confusion if there's a semi-colon in a file
name?

> Wy wget version is GNU Wget 1.9.1 (and prefer to not change, causes it
> is used by apt-methods...)

   And the current _released_ version is 1.10.2, so who else will be
interested in changes to 1.9.1?



   Steven M. Schweda   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   382 South Warwick Street(+1) 651-699-9818
   Saint Paul  MN  55105-2547

[enhancement request] goals to programmatically parse output ( -o or -a)

[Thomas Harding]

Hello,
When I try to script wget, I have to cope with a few problems :
- verbose output is ... verbose, so it is not the way to parse
- -nv output is ... to silent and not easy to parse, as:
- there is no messages about host/domain not founds
- http errors are splitted unto 2 lines (yes, I know grep -B1)
- when using -c, already completed files results in "Refusing to
  truncate" message.


So, what I would in an parseable wget output, eg by a
 "--scripteable-output" option will be:

- all outputs lines will uses semicolumn (;) separated fields
- first field will have a parseable error message, such as
  "HTTP 403", or "UNKNOWN HOST" or "SUCCESS"
- second field will show the file/domain/machine which causes error
- third field will be free, eg help message such as "following File 
  was not found: http://my.domain/file.html"; or "downloaded n Bytes"

-no bloodly progress bar or incremental downloaded size :)

Also, there is a non consistent exit status:
- if you specify a non-existent file/domain as last url, status is 1
- otherwise, status is 0

Wy wget version is GNU Wget 1.9.1 (and prefer to not change, causes it
is used by apt-methods...)

-- 
Thomas Harding