Build System RSS Feeds
The Bioconductor Build System updates RSS feeds for each package if there were any issues (warnings, errors, timeouts) with the package build, in both release and devel.
Package maintainers are encouraged to subscribe to these feeds to be notified immediately if there are any build problems.
There is a separate RSS URL for each package. The feed URLs take this form:
Software builds:
http://bioconductor.org/rss/build/packages/PACKAGENAME.rss
Experiment Data builds:
http://bioconductor.org/rss/build/data-experiment/packages/PACKAGENAME.rss
Workflow builds:
http://bioconductor.org/rss/build/workflows/packages/PACKAGENAME.rss
Book builds:
http://bioconductor.org/rss/build/books/packages/PACKAGENAME.rss
Long Tests builds:
http://bioconductor.org/rss/build/longtests/packages/PACKAGENAME.rss
To get the feed URL for your package, replace “PACKAGENAME” with the name of your package. Feed URLs can be pasted into any RSS reader (they are not meant to be viewed by web browsers).
(Note that these are actually Atom feeds, but will work in any modern RSS reader.)
At present, feeds are updated:
- daily (except on Sundays) at 2:45pm EST for the Software builds
- on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, at 4:45pm EST for the Experiment Data builds
- on Tuesdays and Fridays at 3:45pm EST for the Workflow builds
- on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at 3:45pm EST for the Book builds
- on Sundays at 12:45am EST for the Long Tests builds
The feeds support PubSubHubbub (also known as PuSH) which means updates will be pushed immediately to PuSH-enabled readers, eliminating the need to poll the feeds for new content.
RSS To Email
If you are not in the habit of using an RSS reader, you can receive the feed notifications in your email client.
In Thunderbird, RSS feeds can be displayed in the email client. This is possible in other desktop email clients as well.
There are a number of services which will email you the contents of RSS feeds.
You can also set up the rss2email script to do this for you.
About the Feeds
The RSS feeds contain a link to your package’s daily build report which contains clickable icons labeled with the build status (OK, ERROR, WARNINGS, TIMEOUT), that look something like this:
Click on the icon to see the full report. Note that the builds run daily, and if the issue has cleared up, you may not see the condition reported by the RSS feed.
Build issues may be transient (for example, a package tries to download a file from a site which may be down temporarily), or they may be the result of a problem with the build system itself. If you have questions about a build issue, contact the bioc-devel mailing list.