[pca] Non-existing patch

[Martin Paul]

Thomas Gouverneur wrote:
> Something that could be integrated into PCA, related to my other post
> on the mailling, is the new way of getting patches metadata (with XML
> API). This way, when you have a broken dep' like this, you could check
> the proper metadata of the missing patch directly @ Oracle and resolve
> the dependency automatically, without having to link theses patches
> inside PCA's code..
> 
> What do you think ?

Even if one would cache most (of the old) patch metadata, getting the rest on 
every run of PCA would be pretty slow, I guess. Then there are many PCA users 
who run it on machines with no (or only internal) network connection.

I think having one file with all the metadata makes much more sense than 
spreading it over thousands of single XML URLs (especially as it allows tools 
like PCA to go back in time by using old xref files). It's sad that Oracle never 
found it important enough to add extra fields we are missing to the xref file 
(like checksums, etc.), though.

*IF* the XML interface proves to be fast and stable, and *IF* Oracle would allow 
outsiders to offer the contained information (which they don't now, AFAIK), one 
could think about a service which would get the xref file plus all the extra 
information from the XML links, combine it into an extended xref file with some 
new columns, and offer that file, reliable and daily. Like that, the information 
harvesting at least would have to be done only once, and not by every PCA user.

Martin.