Proper metadata format

All,

I recently undertook the task of creating a perl script to perform a task
similar to createrepo. My goal was to create something that could be used in
Windows and did not require the rpm library. I found
RPM::Header::PurePerl<http://search.cpan.org/%7Etlbdk/RPM-Header-PurePerl-1.0.2/lib/RPM/Header/PurePerl.pm>and
for the most part it provided me with the proper information, however,
I
did need to extend it slightly. The output I created is based on the output
of createrepo against a particular collection of rpms.

My question is: Is there a proper standard for the metadata files? I have
noticed the files distributed by RedHat do not necessarily match the files
created by SuSE. I have also noticed that if I use createrepo against the
RedHat Enterprise rpms, I am presented with files in a slightly different
format. Basically what I am looking for is if there is a baseline of
required items (for example, do all requires need an epoch?). I probably
went about this backwards, but I want to make sure my resulting xml
documents are legit. In my testing they work fine, I see the same results
with the vendor provided files as I do with my own. I would appreciate any
direction you can provide.

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