Metacat

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#     '$Date: 2003-08-01 10:39:16 -0700 (Fri, 01 Aug 2003) $'

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Metacat: XML Metadata Database

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Version: 1.3.1 Release

Send feedback and bugs to: metacat-dev@ecoinformatics.org

                           http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org

Contributors: Matt Jones (jones@nceas.ucsb.edu)

              Chad Berkley (berkley@nceas.ucsb.edu)

              Jing Tao (tao@nceas.ucsb.edu)

              Jivka Bojilova (bojilova@nceas.ucsb.edu)

              Dan Higgins (higgins@nceas.ucsb.edu)

Metacat is a flexible database storage system for XML formatted

documents. Metacat models the structure of the XML document, therefore

allowing storage of XML documents with arbitrary schemas. Metacat supports

several databases on the back-end, including Oracle, PostgreSQL and SQL

Server.  The server supports XML document storage, retrievel, query,

validation, and transformation (using the XSLT stylesheet language).

In addition, there is a mechanism for replicating the database

to other metacat instances for backup and load balancing purposes.

Metacat currently uses an LDAP database for authenticating users, but

was written to accomodate other authentication services as well.

Release Notes for 1.3.1:

This is a simple interim bug fix. No major functionality changes. Bugs fixed 

include:

 1) Metacat 1.3.0 doesn't work in Java 1.3 because a subtle API differnce in 

    Java 1.3 and Java 1.4. Currently, Metacat 1.3.1 will work in both Java 1.3 

    and Java 1.4.

 2) Distribution package size was reduced.

Release Notes for 1.3.0

In 1.3.0 release, the structure of the xml_access table was changed and a new

table, xml_accesssubtree was added. If you try to update a previously 

installed Metacat, you should run a script file to updated the table structure 

before installation.

For Oracle user: At the SQLPLUS prompt type the following -

@src/reviseformetacat13.sql

For Postgresql user: At install directory prompt type the following -

psql exp < src/reviseformetacat13_postgres.sql

(where 'exp' is the database name).

After installation, user should run "ant schemasql" command to register EML2

schema in xml_catalog table.

If you are a new Metacat user, this step is unneeded.

Note: 1) We recommend to use Tomcat 4 and JAVA 1.4 to run Metacat. Otherwise, 

         it will cause potential replication issues.

      2) Delete the xercesImpl.jar and xmlParserAPIs.jar files 

         which are in $CATALINA_HOME/common/endorsed. They are old version and

         don't support XML schema validation.

New Features in 1.3.0

  1) Partialy support EML2 document. User can store, query, read and write

     EML2 documents. However, Metacat only support access control in resource

     level. The subtree level access control will be ignored.

  2) Support other xml document base on namespace/schema.

  3) Support query for attribute value

  4) Assign MIME type to data file base on metadata when user try to read it.

  5) Owner can assign access rules to a document which does not have access 

     document to apply it.

  6) Support exporting single file, not only whole package

  7) Resupport Microsoft SQL Server.

Fixes in 1.3.0:

  1) Couldn't finish delta T replication for large set of documents.

  2) Couldn't create access control during delta T replication.

  3) Eorr will be written to a seperated log file if some documents

     were failed in replication.

  4) Decrease the time to create access rules during insert or update 

     a package.

Installation

------------

See the file "docs/user/metacatinstall.html" for detailed instructions.

Documentation

-------------

See the docs directory for detailed documentation and installation

instructions.

Details of the Metacat architecture can be found on the website for

the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB):

  http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/metacat/

Contributions to this work are welcome.  Please see the above web site

for details on how to contribute.

Major Known Bugs or Feature Requests (see http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you discover a bug

please report it, either by email (above) or by using our bug tracking

system (http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org). There is a list of currently

unimplemented features in Bugzilla that we are working on for the next

release.

Legalese

--------

This software is copyrighted by The Regents of the University of California

and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis

and licensed under the GNU GPL; see the 'LICENSE' file for

details.

This material is based upon work supported by the

National Science Foundation under Grant No. DEB99-80154 and DBI99-04777.

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recomendations expressed in this

material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect

the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

This product includes software developed by the Apache Software

Foundation (http://www.apache.org/). See the LICENSE file in lib/apache

for details.

The source code, object code, and documentation in the com.oreilly.servlet

package is copyright and owned by Jason Hunter. See the cos-license.html file

for details of the license.  Licensor retains title to and ownership of the

Software and all enhancements, modifications, and updates to the Software.