a search --strict option to search only for an exact package name

[stonebig]

What's the problem this feature will solve?
I'm trying to get from pypi the given Summary of a package, programmatically
it's a bit what qypi does (but still from command line)

today, I need to:

• !pip search "this_package"
• get the answer from stdout
• filter the first line that starts per "this_package ("
• then takes what is after the first " - "
  ... a bit tricky

Describe the solution you'd like

• having a pip search option that allows to gives back only for an exact match ("--strict" ?) (exact in PEP 503 meaning)
• having an option to get directly programmatically a json / dict result, so I don't have to parse the result, would be awesome, but may not be in the pip idea.

Alternative Solutions
currently, I have to do that way, which has a bigger environmental impact than I would like

Additional context
I'm maintaining WinPython distribution.

[deveshks]

This is something I can take a look at. For --strict flag, I think we can use some variant of the search api in Warehouse API

I assume that for the json/dict, representation, the output might be something like this for pip search peppercorn --format json

[
         {
		'Name': 'peppercorn',
		'Version': '0.6',
		'Description': 'A library for converting a token stream into a data structure for use in web form posts'
	},
	{
		'Name': 'pepperedform',
		'Version': '0.6.1',
		'Description': 'Helpers for using peppercorn with formprocess.'
	}
]

I will wait for other to chime in and provide their ideas before we continue.

[stonebig]

In the mean time I discover that since Python-3.5+, we have the ".run" option, better than ".popen" in my use case.

import subprocess
process = subprocess.run( ["pip","search", "zezefefzefed" ,"--retries", "0"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)  

[andrew-garner]

This feature would also be useful when trying to retrieve available versions for a given package. In the case of ansible when I run pip search ansible== with pip v20.2 I get back 100 hits, none of which are for the "ansible" package. If I know I have the exact package name then I'd like to be able to get the available versions which is what I'd hope this feature would do.

[uranusjr]

Somehow blocked by pypi/warehouse#284. The index needs to design an API first. There’s nothing pip can do at this time.

[pradyunsg]

Closing this since pip search is no longer usable on PyPI: #5216

We can revisit this if/when there's a new search API.