MediaShelf fedora-batch

A batch controller for Fedora's REST API.

fedora-batch is a proof-of-concept implementation of a batch API for Fedora.

Say, for example, you want to display the metadata for 10 different Fedora objects on a web page. For the sake of example, let's assume we're working with 10 Fedora objects which each represent a video resource and that the metadata we're interested in is contained in each object's DC datastream.

Currently, you might tackle this by issuing 10 separate getDatastreamDissemination requests to Fedora. However, what if you could just issue a single batch request to Fedora and have Fedora assemble and return a single response?

And because requirements always change, now imagine that you also need some metadata that's only captured in the RELS-EXT datastream, so now instead of 10, you face 20 separate HTTP requests. But with the batch request, you just add the second datastream ID parameter and the batch controller takes care of the rest.

For complete documentation see: http://mediashelf.github.com/fedora-batch/

Usage

Sample request:

http://localhost:8080/fedora/batch/getDatastreams?pid=demo:1&pid=demo:2&dsid=DC

The request above fetches the DC datastreams from demo:1 and demo:2 objects, and returns the result as a multipart/mixed message, e.g.:

--uuid:3d31e842-3291-44ca-ad66-43f6cea63f90
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-ID: <demo:1/DC>


<oai_dc:dc xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" 
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:title>Demo Object 1</dc:title>
  <dc:identifier>demo:1</dc:identifier>
</oai_dc:dc>

--uuid:3d31e842-3291-44ca-ad66-43f6cea63f90--
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-ID: <demo:2/DC>


<oai_dc:dc xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" 
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:title>Demo Object 2</dc:title>
  <dc:identifier>demo:2</dc:identifier>
</oai_dc:dc>

--uuid:0e61693c-18ea-4b53-912f-b4d15dd00283--

As of version 0.5, fedora-client provides basic support for BatchGetDatastreams:

BatchGetDatastreams req = new BatchGetDatastreams();
BatchResponse res = req.pids("demo:1", "demo:2").dsids("DC").execute(fedora);
for (BodyPart part : res.getBodyParts()) {
  // do something...
  System.out.println(part.getEntityAs(String.class);
}

Requirements

• Fedora 3.6 (if you're interested in undertaking a backport for 3.5, contact me)

Installation

fedora-batch-webapp-NNN.war is a drop-in replacement for fedora.war but requires a Servlet 3.0 container (e.g. Tomcat 7.x).

However, manual installation of fedora-batch for Servlet 3.x containers is trivial:

1. Add fedora-batch-core-NNN.jar to your Fedora webapp.

   (Tomcat users can copy the fedora-batch jar to $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/fedora/WEB-INF/lib)

   Manual installation for Servlet 2.x containers (e.g Tomcat 6.x) adds just one additional step of updating the web.xml of the Fedora webapp:

2. Edit your Fedora web.xml to include the following:

    <servlet>
      <display-name>CXF Batch Servlet</display-name>
      <servlet-name>CXFBatchServlet</servlet-name>
      <servlet-class>org.apache.cxf.transport.servlet.CXFServlet</servlet-class>
      <init-param>
        <param-name>config-location</param-name>
        <param-value>classpath:batch-jaxrs.xml</param-value>
      </init-param>
      <load-on-startup>3</load-on-startup>
    </servlet>
   
    <servlet-mapping>
      <servlet-name>CXFBatchServlet</servlet-name>
      <url-pattern>/batch/*</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>
   

   (Tomcat users will find your web.xml in $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/fedora/WEB-INF/web.xml)

Building from source

1. Download the source, e.g.

    git clone git://github.com/mediashelf/fedora-batch.git
   

2. Build the project

    cd fedora-batch
    mvn install
   

License & Copyright

fedora-batch is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

fedora-batch is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with fedora-client. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Copyright © 2012 MediaShelf