This program extracts information from third party stores and saves it in a YAML file for F-Droid Server.

Python version required is 3.9+.

Dependencies

• ruamel.yaml
• colorama
• win32-setctime : If on Windows
• pillow
• requests

Usage:

usage: parser.py [-h] [--metadata-dir METADATA_DIR] [--repo-dir REPO_DIR]
                 [--unsigned-dir UNSIGNED_DIR] --language LANGUAGE
                 [--force-metadata] [--force-version] [--force-screenshots]
                 [--force-icons] [--force-all] [--convert-apks] [--sign-apk]
                 [--key-file KEY_FILE] [--cert-file CERT_FILE]
                 [--certificate-password CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD]
                 [--build-tools-path BUILD_TOOLS_PATH]
                 [--apk-editor-path APK_EDITOR_PATH] [--download-screenshots]
                 [--data-file DATA_FILE] [--replacement-file REPLACEMENT_FILE]
                 [--log-path LOG_PATH] [--cookie-path COOKIE_PATH]
                 [--use-eng-name] [--rename-files] [--skip-if-exists]
                 [--recompile-bad-apk] [--apktool-path APKTOOL_PATH]

Parser for PlayStore information to F-Droid YML metadata files.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --metadata-dir METADATA_DIR
                        Directory where F-Droid metadata files are stored.
  --repo-dir REPO_DIR   Directory where F-Droid repo files are stored.
  --unsigned-dir UNSIGNED_DIR
                        Directory where unsigned app files are stored.
  --language LANGUAGE   Language of the information to retrieve.
  --force-metadata      Force overwrite existing metadata.
  --force-version       Force updating version name and code even if they are
                        already specified in the YML file.
  --force-screenshots   Force overwrite existing screenshots.
  --force-icons         Force overwrite existing icons.
  --force-all           Force overwrite existing metadata, screenshots and
                        icons.
  --convert-apks        Convert APKS files to APK and sign them.
  --sign-apk            Sign resulting APK files from APKS conversion.
  --key-file KEY_FILE   Key file used to sign the APK, required if --convert-
                        apks is used.
  --cert-file CERT_FILE
                        Cert file used to sign the APK, required if --convert-
                        apks is used.
  --certificate-password CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD
                        Password to sign the APK.
  --build-tools-path BUILD_TOOLS_PATH
                        Path to Android SDK buildtools binaries.
  --apk-editor-path APK_EDITOR_PATH
                        Path to the ApkEditor.jar file.
  --download-screenshots
                        Download screenshots which will be stored in the repo
                        directory.
  --data-file DATA_FILE
                        Path to the JSON formatted data file. Default:
                        data.json located in the program's directory.
  --replacement-file REPLACEMENT_FILE
                        JSON formatted file containing a dict with
                        replacements for the package name of all found apps.
  --log-path LOG_PATH   Path to the directory where to store the log files.
                        Default: Program's directory.
  --cookie-path COOKIE_PATH
                        Path to a Netscape cookie file.
  --use-eng-name        Use the English app name instead of the localized one.
  --rename-files        Rename APK files to packageName_versionCode. Requires
                        aapt2 and aapt2.
  --skip-if-exists      Skip renaming if the file already exists. By default a
                        numeric suffix is appended to the name.
  --recompile-bad-apk   Recompile APK files that have CRC errors. File dates
                        are preserved. Requires apktool.
  --apktool-path APKTOOL_PATH
                        Path to apktool. By default uses apktool.jar in the
                        program's directory.

Explanation

This program:

• Needs to know where the metadata is located, it can infer this if you provide either the metadata, repo or unsigned path.
• Depends on a data file, explained below.
• Needs a language to be provided.
• Requires AAPT and AAPT2.

By default no data will be overwritten except for empty or dummy values.

You can:

• Force overwrite all existing data (metadata, icons and screenshots) with --force-all.
• Force overwrite existing metadata with --force-metadata.
• Force overwrite only the version values in the YML files with --force-version.
• Force overwrite all the icons with --force-icons.
• Force overwrite the screenshots with --force-screenshots.
• Force use English application names with --use-eng-name.
• Rename files to F-Droids default naming with --rename-files and skip renaming if file already exists with --skip-if-exists.
• Recompile APK files with CRC errors with --recompile-bad-apk. (This requires --apktool-path)

If --force-screenshots/--force-all is used and screenshots already exist they will be moved to a backup directory in /repo/backup, the backup directory will be emptied before this move operation. The deletion of the backup files is up to the user (you).

If the provided paths for the corresponding option don't end with metadata, repo or unsigned the program will terminate.

If --metadata-dir is provided only the YML files present in the /metadata directory will be processed, if there are APK files in the /repo directory that don't have a YML file they will not be created.

If --repo-dir is provided only the APK files present in the /repo directory will be processed, if there are YML files in the /metadata directory that don't have an existing APK file they will not be processed.

If --unsigned-dir is provided only the APK files present in the /unsigned directory will be processed, APK files in the repo directory and YML files in the metadata directory that don't match any APK in the unsigned directory will not be processed.

By default, only the icons will be downloaded from the stores, if you want to also get the screenshots --download-screenshots must be used, they will be stored in /repo/<package-id>/en-US/phoneScreenshots regardless of the language used because that's the locale F-Droid defaults to.

APKS files can be converted to APK with ApkEditor by using --convert-apks, if APKS conversion is enabled then the program will require:

• Path to the ApkEditor.jar file: To convert the APKS file to APK. This is the program that does all the work. Use --apk-editor-path to provide the path.

If --sign-apk is specified:

• Certificate file path: To sign the resulting APK file. Use --certificate-file.
• Key file path: To sign the resulting APK file. Use --key-file.
• Certificate password: Only if the certificate is encrypted. Use --certificate-password.
• ApkSigner: It must be in your PATH, or you can also specify the path with --build-tools-path.

The anti-features are detected based on some keywords, is not perfect:

• NonFreeAssets is always assumed.
• If no repo is found UpstreamNonFree is assumed.
• If ads are detected Ads is used.
• If any data sharing or collection is detected Tracking is used.
• If In-app purchases are detected NonFreeDep and NonFreeNet are used.

The license extraction is done this way:

1. If the app's website is a GitHub or a GitLab repository, the license of the app is assumed to be the same as the license of the repository.
2. If the license from the repo doesn't match any licenses accepted by F-Droid (set in the data file) then "Other" will be used.
3. If the app's website is not a repository, "Copyright" will be assumed.

Packages not found and packages that had any data not found will be writen to a log file located by default in the same program's directory, the path can be configured with --log-path. They are also printed at the end.

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Remember to run these two commands after all the download is completed:

fdroid rewritemeta
fdroid update

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About the data file

The data file is a JSON formatted file that contains required information for this program to work, at the same time it also contains mappings used to link categories and icon sizes, this can be customized by editing the data.json file. The contents are as follows:

• Licenses: List containing the licenses accepted by F-Droid taken from the official metadata.json file.
• App_Categories: Dict containing the mapping for app categories. If key (left) is found, value (right) will be used if not empty, otherwise key (left) is used. Categories taken from the Play Store official documentation.
• Game_Categories: Dict containing the mapping for game categories. Same logic than the one for app categories is used. Categories taken from the Play Store official documentation.
• Locales: List containing the official supported languages for the Play Store. Locales taken from the official documentation.
• Icon_Relations: Dict containing the relation between the directory name (key/left) and the icon size (value/right). Icons are squares so only the one number is needed.
• Regex_Patterns: Dict containing the regex search patterns for data extraction for every supported store: key/left is name of the pattern, value/right is the (regex) pattern.

The default path for the data file is <path-to-this-program>/data.json, another path can be specified using --data-file.

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About the replacement file

This is a JSON formatted file containing a single dict named Replacements which stores a dict containing search (key) and replace (value) mappings.

The replacement file can be used to either replace parts of the package ID or all of it. After the first match, all the rest of the search terms are skipped for the package, so a package can only be affected by one replacement at the same time. Included is an example file. Path to this file is specified with --replacement-file.

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