Querying the CTAN Database with JSON – List of Packages

The list of packages can be obtained under the URL

http://www.ctan.org/json/1.3/packages

The result is an JSON file as in the following listing:

[{"key":"a0poster","name":"a0poster","caption":"Support for designing posters on large paper"},
 {"key":"a2ac","name":"a2ac","caption":"AFM to AFM plus Composites"},
 {"key":"a2ping","name":"a2ping","caption":"Advanced PS, PDF, EPS converter"},
 {"key":"a4","name":"a4","caption":"Support for A4 paper sizes"},
 {"key":"a4wide","name":"a4wide","caption":"\"Wide\" a4 layout"},
 {"key":"a5comb","name":"a5comb","caption":"Support for a5 paper sizes"},
 {"key":"aaai","name":"aaai","caption":"AAAI style"},
 {"key":"aaai-named","name":"aaai-named","caption":"BibTeX style for AAAI"},
 {"key":"aastex","name":"aastex","caption":"Macros for Manuscript Preparation for AAS Journals"},
 {"key":"abbr","name":"abbr","caption":"Simple macros supporting abreviations for Plain and LaTeX"},
 {"key":"abbrevs","name":"abbrevs","caption":"Text abbreviations in LaTeX"},
 {"key":"abc","name":"abc","caption":"Support ABC music notation in LaTeX"},
 {"key":"abc2mtex","name":"abc2mtex","caption":"Notate tunes stored in ABC notation"},
 …  

The packages contained in this list are ordered ascending on the key of the packages.

package

Each package is contained as object. This object has several attributes:

key

This attribute contains the key of the package. This attribute is mandatory.

name

This attribute contains the name of the package. This attribute is mandatory.

caption

This attribute contains a short descriptive text about the content of the package.

Selecting

The list can be restricted to contain part of the packages only. The condition is that the key starts with a given string. This string is specified with the parameter key.

http://www.ctan.org/json/1.3/packages?key=aaai

The following example extracts all packages for which the key starts with the letter n:

http://www.ctan.org/json/1.3/packages?key=n