Project

General

Profile

1 878 berkley
<!--
2
  * metacatquery.html
3
  *
4
  *      Authors: Jivka Bojilova
5
  *    Copyright: 2000 Regents of the University of California and the
6
  *               National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
7
  *  For Details: http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/
8
  *      Created: 2000 April 5
9
  *      Version: 0.01
10
  *    File Info: '$Id$'
11
  *
12
  * October Meeting SDSC, 2000
13
-->
14
<HTML>
15
<HEAD>
16
<TITLE>Metacat</TITLE>
17 3780 daigle
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./default.css">
18 878 berkley
</HEAD>
19
<BODY>
20
  <table width="100%">
21
    <tr>
22
      <td class="tablehead" colspan="2"><p class="label">Queries and Results</p></td>
23
      <td class="tablehead" colspan="2" align="right">
24
        <a href="./metacatload.html">Back</a> | <a href="./metacattour.html">Home</a> |
25
        <a href="./metacatread.html">Next</a>
26
      </td>
27
    </tr>
28
  </table>
29
  <P>The Metacat Server provides
30
  an interface for searching of metadata stored in the Metacat database.
31
  <P> <img alt="architecture diagram of a Metacat query" src="metadataquery.gif">
32 881 berkley
  <br><br><b>Steps to perform a query in Metacat</b>
33 878 berkley
  <ol>
34 881 berkley
    <li>A pathquery document is created from the search criteria provided through
35 878 berkley
    the servlet parameters.</li>
36
    <li>This pathquery document is sent to DBQuery where it
37
    is processed and translated into SQL statements.</li>
38
    <li>The SQL statements are executed against the database and the resultsets
39
    are translated into an xml document of doctype "resultset".</li>
40
    <li>The resultset document is either returned directly to the client as XML
41
    or is transformed through XSLT and returned as HTML.</li>
42
  </ol>
43
44
  <b>The Pathquery Document</b>
45
  <pre>
46
   &lt;pathquery version="1.0"&gt;
47
      &lt;meta_file_id&gt;unspecified&lt;/meta_file_id&gt;
48
      &lt;querytitle&gt;unspecified&lt;/querytitle&gt;
49 3775 tao
      &lt;returnfield&gt;dataset/title&lt;/returnfield&gt;
50
      &lt;returnfield&gt;keyword&lt;/returnfield&gt;
51
      &lt;returnfield&gt;originator/individualName/surName&lt;/returnfield&gt;
52
      &lt;returndoctype&gt;eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.1&lt;/returndoctype&gt;
53
      &lt;returndoctype&gt;eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.0&lt;/returndoctype&gt;
54 878 berkley
      &lt;querygroup operator="UNION"&gt;
55
        &lt;queryterm casesensitive="false" searchmode="contains"&gt;
56 3784 tao
          &lt;value&gt;Plant&lt;/value&gt;
57 3775 tao
          &lt;pathexpr&gt;dataset/title&lt;/pathexpr&gt;
58 878 berkley
        &lt;/queryterm&gt;
59
        &lt;queryterm casesensitive="false" searchmode="contains"&gt;
60 3775 tao
          &lt;value&gt;plant&lt;/value&gt;
61
          &lt;pathexpr&gt;keyword&lt;/pathexpr&gt;
62 878 berkley
        &lt;/queryterm&gt;
63
      &lt;/querygroup&gt;
64 3775 tao
  &lt;/pathquery&gt;
65 878 berkley
  </pre>
66
67
  <p>The pathquery document was designed to be flexible enough to query specific
68
  fields of any XML document.  It also allows the client to specify which fields
69
  from a returned document are returned in the initial resultset.  Each
70
  &lt;returnfield&gt; parameter specifies a field which the DB will return
71
  for any query hit.  The returndoctype fields allows the client to limit the
72 3775 tao
  type of documents to be returned.  If no returndoctype element , all document types are returned.
73 878 berkley
  A &lt;querygroup&gt; creates an AND or an OR statement of the &lt;queryterm&gt;s
74 2476 costa
  in the group.  The operator can be UNION or INTERSECT.  A &lt;queryterm&gt;
75 878 berkley
  defines the actual field against which the query is being performed.  The value
76
  of the queryterm that we are quering for is encased in &lt;value&gt; tags.
77
  The &lt;pathexpr&gt; tag specifies an exact path to which you want to restrict
78
  the search.  A &lt;pathexpr&gt; tag which contains the keyword returndoc is
79
  a special case which is discussed in <a href="./packages.html">Packages and
80
  Relations</a>.</p><br>
81
82
  <b>The Resultset Document</b><br>
83
84
  <p>When the pathquery document is submitted and processed, Metacat returns
85
  another XML document called a resultset document.<p>
86
87
  <pre>
88 3775 tao
      &lt;resultset&gt;
89 878 berkley
        &lt;query&gt;
90
          &lt;pathquery version="1.0"&gt;
91
            &lt;meta_file_id&gt;unspecified&lt;/meta_file_id&gt;
92
            &lt;querytitle&gt;unspecified&lt;/querytitle&gt;
93 3775 tao
            &lt;returnfield&gt;dataset/title&lt;/returnfield&gt;
94
            &lt;returnfield&gt;keyword&lt;/returnfield&gt;
95
            &lt;returnfield&gt;originator/individualName/surName&lt;/returnfield&gt;
96
            &lt;returndoctype&gt;eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.1&lt;/returndoctype&gt;
97
            &lt;returndoctype&gt;eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.0&lt;/returndoctype&gt;
98 878 berkley
            &lt;querygroup operator="UNION"&gt;
99 3775 tao
                  &lt;queryterm casesensitive="false" searchmode="contains"&gt;
100
                      &lt;value&gt;Datos&lt;/value&gt;
101
                      &lt;pathexpr&gt;dataset/title&lt;/pathexpr&gt;
102
                  &lt;/queryterm&gt;
103
                  &lt;queryterm casesensitive="false" searchmode="contains"&gt;
104
                     &lt;value&gt;plant&lt;/value&gt;
105
                     &lt;pathexpr&gt;keyword&lt;/pathexpr&gt;
106
                  &lt;/queryterm&gt;
107
           &lt;/querygroup&gt;
108
         &lt;/pathquery&gt;
109 878 berkley
        &lt;/query&gt;
110
111
        &lt;document&gt;
112
          &lt;docid&gt;nceas.44.1&lt;/docid&gt;
113
          &lt;docname&gt;resource&lt;/docname&gt;
114 3775 tao
          &lt;doctype&gt;eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.1&lt;/doctype&gt;
115 878 berkley
          &lt;createdate&gt;2001-01-12 16:12:06.0&lt;/createdate&gt;
116
          &lt;updatedate&gt;2001-01-12 16:12:06.0&lt;/updatedate&gt;
117 3775 tao
          &lt;param name="dataset/title"&gt;Datos Meteorologicos&lt;/param&gt;
118
          &lt;param name="keyword"&gt;intertidal&lt;/param&gt;
119
          &lt;param name="originator/individualName/surName"&gt;Smith&lt;/param&gt;
120
        &lt;/document&gt;
121 878 berkley
122
        &lt;document&gt;
123
          &lt;docid&gt;nceas.42.1&lt;/docid&gt;
124
          &lt;docname&gt;resource&lt;/docname&gt;
125 3775 tao
          &lt;doctype&gt;eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.1&lt;/doctype&gt;
126 878 berkley
          &lt;createdate&gt;2001-01-12 16:11:31.0&lt;/createdate&gt;
127
          &lt;updatedate&gt;2001-01-12 16:11:31.0&lt;/updatedate&gt;
128 3775 tao
          &lt;param name="dataset/title"&gt;Ocean Surface Temperature&lt;/param&gt;
129
          &lt;param name="keyword"&gt;Plant&lt;/param&gt;
130
          &lt;param name="originator/individualName/surName"&gt;Henry&lt;/param&gt;
131 1987 tao
       &lt;/document&gt;
132 878 berkley
      .....
133
      &lt;/resultset&gt;
134
135
  </pre>
136 881 berkley
  <p>The first element in the resultset is &lt;query&gt;.  Its content is just
137
  the pathquery document.  The resultset always returns
138 878 berkley
  the pathquery document that created it in the &lt;query&gt; tag.  The next
139
  major tag is &lt;document&gt;.  Each XML document returned by the query
140 881 berkley
  is represented by a &lt;document&gt; tag.  The default document information returned
141
  is docid, docname, doctype, doctitle, createdate and
142 878 berkley
  updatedate.  The param tags are present if the document found contained
143
  the returnfield chosen in the pathquery document.  The name attribute of the
144 3775 tao
  param tag is the full path to the node specified by the returnfield. <p>
145 878 berkley
146
  <br>
147
  <a href="./metacatload.html">Back</a> | <a href="./metacattour.html">Home</a> |
148
  <a href="./metacatread.html">Next</a>
149
150
</BODY>
151
</HTML>