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<title>KNB Software Development Guide: Metacat</title>
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<table class="tabledefault" width="100%">
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<tr>
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<td rowspan="2"><img src="./images/KNBLogo.gif"></td>
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<td colspan="7"><div class="title">KNB Software Development Guide: Metacat</div></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td><a href="/" class="toollink"> KNB Home </a></td>
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<td><a href="/data.html" class="toollink"> Data </a></td>
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<td><a href="/people.html" class="toollink"> People </a></td>
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<td><a href="/informatics" class="toollink"> Informatics </a></td>
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<td><a href="/biodiversity" class="toollink"> Biocomplexity </a></td>
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<td><a href="/education" class="toollink"> Education </a></td>
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<td><a href="/software" class="toollink"> Software </a></td>
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<hr>
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<p> </p>
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<table class="tabledefault" width="100%">
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<tr>
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<td class="tablehead" colspan="2"><p class="label">Metacat Development Guide</p></td>
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<tr>
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<td>
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<p><a href="/software/download.html">Download Metacat</a></p>
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<p><a href="./metacatinstall.html">Metacat Installation Instructions</a></p>
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<p>Metacat is a flexible metadata database. It utilizes
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<a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml" target="offline">XML</a> as a
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common syntax for representing the large number of metadata content
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standards that are relevant to ecology. Thus, Metacat is a generic XML
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database that allows storage, query, and retrieval of arbitrary XML
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documents without prior knowledge of the XML schema.
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</p>
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<p>
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The Metacat database models XML documents as a DOM tree, basically
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decomposing the nodes of the XML document and storing the node data
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as a series of records in a relational database via a JDBC connection.
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At this point, only Oracle and PostgreSQL have been tested as a backend databases, but
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we have avoided RDBMS specific features in order to maintain portability
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to other relational databases.
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</p>
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<p>
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Metacat is implemented as a Java Servlet, and so communicates using basic
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HTTP protocol semantics. The figure below shows the basic structure of
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the Metacat architecture. A well defined interface for inserting,
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updating, deleting, querying, and transforming (using XSL) XML documents
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is presented. We would like to add the DOM API as an alternative
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supported mechanism for interacting with Metacat, but have not yet
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implemented this functionality.
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</p>
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<p><img src="./metacat.gif" /></p>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr><td> </td></tr>
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<tr>
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<td>The pages below provide more detailed descriptions of the
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various components of the Metacat Servlet. Take the Metacat Tour for
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a detailed look at the algorithms and implementation of Metacat.
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<ul>
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<li> <a href="./metacattour.html">A Tour of Metacat</a></li>
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<li> <a href="./dev/api/index.html" target="offline">Javadoc API
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Documentation</a></li>
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</ul>
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</td>
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</tr>
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<tr><td> </td></tr>
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</table>
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<p class="contact">
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Web Contact: <a href="mailto:jones@nceas.ucsb.edu">jones@nceas.ucsb.edu</A>
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</p>
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