Fetchers

Overview

Paludis makes use of scripts called 'fetchers' to do most downloading. Fetchers can be added for additional protocols (for example, if you need to use a third party ebuild where upstream distributes its sources via Gopher), and built-in fetchers can be replaced (for example, if you want to use something other than wget to fetch via http).

Standard Fetchers

Paludis ships with the following fetcher protocols:

• curl
• file
• ftp
• http
• https

User Defined Fetchers

To write your own fetcher for protocol proto, create an executable script named doproto (the do prefix is essential). Fetchers may be located in any of the following directories:

• confdir/fetchers/, where confdir is the directory in which use.conf et al. reside.
• DATADIR/paludis/fetchers/. On most systems, DATADIR is /usr/share.
• LIBEXECDIR/paludis/fetchers/. On most systems, LIBEXECDIR is /usr/libexec.

Paludis places its own fetchers in LIBEXECDIR/fetchers/doproto. This directory is not for end user use.

A fetcher is called with two parameters, the source URI and the destination filename. It indicates success or failure via its exit status.

For examples, consult the built-in fetchers, which can be found in LIBEXECDIR/paludis/fetchers/.