Use the appstream library for appdata.xml updates?

[gasinvein]

https://github.com/ximion/appstream provides a nice GObject API to manipulate metainfo. It should be rather easy to use for adding new releases. Why was a custom parser/writer implemented instead?

[wjt]

Honest answer: I didn't know about it. I think back then I was not quite aware that there are two completely unrelated GLib-based appstream libraries. I guess I probably checked appstream-glib.

Another possible reason: does that API preserve formatting? Comments?

[gasinvein]

does that API preserve formatting? Comments?

No, neither, it seems. But is it worth preserving? The vast majority of Flathub apps seem to use canonical 2-space indentation.

[gasinvein]

I've played around a bit with the appstream lib, and it seems to loose some data on export. E.g. update_contact is dropped if was present in the original file, a <release> inner contents also seem to be lost.