Create Repository

Create remote repository

Objective

Create a tool that facilitates the creation of a remote repository containing specific components and/or flows. This tool allows the component descriptors and all the necessary resources (jar file dependencies) and the flow descriptor to be written to disk or to a website. The tool writes out three different formats of RDF and all the resources.

Background

During the development of a component, and even after its completion, the programmer may need to create real flows using the component, to make sure that everything would work ok in a "production" environment. So far the programmer had to manually upload the component and manually re-create the flow each time a change was made to the component, making the process very lengthy and cumbersome. This tool facilitates the creation of the flows that can then be used rather than having to recreate the flow.

An additional motivation for this tool is for purposes of demos and troubleshooting. Suppose that a developer has a problem with a particular flow, or needs to do a "show-and-tell" session about a flow with someone else. Short of having to instruct the other person to sync the SVN repository, upload the component, re-create the flow, there was no other solution.

This tool allows the developer to create a remote repository (for testing purposes or for demos) containing just the pieces of interest (one or more flows, or an entire repository).

Approach

The user must specify the server where Meandre is running, the username/password for accessing the Meandre server, and the destination URL where the repository should be created. Optionally, the user may specify one or more flows to be uploaded into the remote repository. If no flows are specified, it is assumed that the entire repository should be uploaded remotely.

The tool extracts the RDF model for the specified flows (or the entire repository), finds all the components, and replaces the context URIs for each component with URIs pointing to the new remote location. Afterwards, the tool uploads the context for each component to the remote location, along with the RDF model of the newly created remote repository.

Usage

This tool resides in the Meandre-Component-Devkit project available from SVN. The latest version of this tool can be built by invoking "ant dist". Once the build process is completed, the tool is available in the "dist/" folder as a JAR file.

Usage:
  java -Xmx512m -jar CreateRepository-x.y.z.jar [--help] (-s|--server) <server> [--port <port>] (-u|--user)
  <user> (-p|--password) <password> [(-f|--flow) <flow>] [--flowFile <flow file>]
  [(-c|--component) <component>] [--compFile <component file>] (-d|--destination)
  <destination> [--davuser <webdav username>] [--davpassword <webdav password>]
  [--skip-upload] [-v|--verbose]

Creates/updates a remote WebDAV repository for the specified flow(s) and/or
component(s) and returns the location to it


  [--help]
        Prints this help message.

  (-s|--server) <server>
        Meandre server name

  [--port <port>]
        Meandre server port (default: 1714)

  (-u|--user) <user>
        Meandre user name

  (-p|--password) <password>
        Meandre user password

  [(-f|--flow) <flow>]
        The flow name; repeat as necessary

  [--flowFile <flow file>]
        The file to read the flow names from

  [(-c|--component) <component>]
        The component name; repeat as necessary

  [--compFile <component file>]
        The file to read the component names from

  (-d|--destination) <destination>
        The destination where to create the repository

  [--davuser <webdav username>]
        The destination WebDAV user name

  [--davpassword <webdav password>]
        The destination WebDAV password

  [--skip-upload]
        Skip uploading of JAR dependencies

  [-v|--verbose]
        Enable verbose output

Examples

To create a repository based on the fictional flow 'http://test.org/flow/webdav-test' and store it at 'http://norma.ncsa.uiuc.edu/public-dav/Meandre/demos/Webdav':

To create a repository based on the same flow as above, but this time be uploaded to a password-protected WebDAV with credentials "username: some_user password: some_password" at 'http://norma.ncsa.uiuc.edu/private-dav/Meandre/demos/Webdav'

To create a repository that contains only components, and the URIs of these components is to be read from the file 'components.txt'. This time, let's assume the server is running on port 9000:

The file format expected by --compFile and --flowFile is one component (or flow) URI per line. Blank lines are ignored.

Parameters -c and --compFile cannot be combined. Similarly, parameters -f and --flowFile cannot be combined.

The parameter -f can be specified multiple times if more than one flow should be included, or omitted completely if the entire repository should be included. Similarly, parameter -c can be specified multiple times if more than one component needs to be uploaded.

Any parameters not specified in the command line will be read from the file ~/.SEASR/CreateRepository.conf (if it exists). This file follows the traditional Java properties format (with property=value assignments), and is a good place to store values such as the server, username, and password, so they don't have to be re-entered every time. If a particular flow is modified/tested many times, you can also specify the flow(s) URI(s) in the file, and the destination too, if needed.

Example CreateRepository.conf:

server=localhost
port=1714
user=admin
password=admin