Metacat

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#     '$Date: 2004-09-21 23:39:45 -0700 (Tue, 21 Sep 2004) $'

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Metacat: XML Metadata Database

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

Version: 1.4.0 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)

              Saurabh Garg (sgarg@nceas.ucsb.edu)

              Duane Costa (dcosta@lternet.edu)

Metacat is a flexible database storage system for XML formatted

documents and associated binary files. 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 (limited).  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.

Installation

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

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

Release Notes for 1.4.0:

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

This is a major release, and is the first to introduce many new features to

Metacat.  Some of the major new features in this version of Metacat include:

* Added a new 'Harvester' that allows documents to be periodically pulled

  from distributed sources into metacat, useful for interfacing with other

  system types. See the Metacat Tour for details.

* Added new 'skins' capability to allow the GUI for the metacat web interface

  to be more easily customized to fit into site needs.  The skin is based on

  a flexible mix of XSLT, CSS, and Javascript.

* Added a web-based metadata entry form for submitting limited EML documents

  as part of a data registry.  The GUI for the registry is customizable and 

  is integrated with the 'skins' system for the main metacat interface.  The

  registry subsystem is written in Perl, and can simultaneously be used to 

  present multiple 'registry' interfaces.

* A new 'client API' has been developed and implemented in Java and in Perl 

  so that metacat functions can be accessed from any program in those

  languages.  The client API supports the major metacat servlet actions,

  including login(), logout(), query(), insert(), update(), delete(), and 

  upload(). See the Metacat Tour for details.

* Added a new 'getlog' action that produces a usage history for all major

  events.  So now an XML report can be generated for document reads, inserts,

  deletes, etc.  See the new section in the Metacat Tour.

* Added a new 'buildindex' action that can rebuild the index entries for any

  document in the database.

* The configuration file for metacat (metacat.properties) has been moved out

  of the jar file and into the WEB-INF directory, allowing far easier changes

  to the configuration parameters.

* Results in default web interface are sorted by title in the XSLT 

  (configurable)

* Many bugs were fixed.

Details of all changes can be found in the bug database here:

http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org/buglist.cgi?product=Metacat&target_milestone=1.4

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.

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, DBI99-04777, and

0225676.  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.