The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities Website metaexchange is looking for a co-maintainer. If you're interested, please take a look at this general information about GNU packages and being a GNU maintainer, and then email maintainers@gnu.org with a bit about your background and particular interest in this package. Thanks. Author: Laurence D. Finston. The following copyright notices apply to the text and source code of this web site (document), and any graphics that may appear on it. The software described in this text has its own copyright notice or notices and license, which can be found in the distribution itself. The following copyright notice applies to the contents of this document up to and including January 31, 2007: Copyright © 2006, 2007 IWF Wissen und Medien gGmbH The following copyright notice applies to all changes and additions to this document starting on February 1, 2007: Copyright © 2007 The Free Software Foundation Permission is granted to copy, distribute, and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of this license is included in the file COPYING.TXT Last updated: March 19, 2007 Table of Contents Top Introduction Supported Platforms and Portability Late Breaking News Old News Distribution Documentation OAI (Open Archives Initiative) dc_test (Database) ATest (C++ Program) Z39.50 (Pica) PICA_DB (Database) ZTest (C++ Program) Scantest (C++ Program) LO_DB (Database) Mailing List Links Contact Back to top Introduction The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities are a package for retrieving metadata from servers, writing it to databases, and representing it in human-readable form. They currently retrieve data from servers using two different sets of standards: The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and Z39.50. The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities contain code from the IWF Metadata Harvester, a package developed by the author while participating in a programm sponsored by the German government at the IWF Wissen und Media gGmbH, Göttingen, Germany. Since this program ended on January 31, 2007, he is developing a new package based on the IWF Metadata Harvester under the name GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities. The author would like to express his appreciation to the IWF Wissen und Media gGmbH for permitting him to publish his work there under the GNU General Public License and the GNU Free Documentation License. OAI servers provide records in the form of XML files in a format based on the Dublin Core standard. Z39.50 servers, on the other hand, can provide records in a variety of formats, the most common of which is USMARC. The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities can currently only process records from z39.50 servers in the Pica format, which is widespread in the Netherlands and Germany. In the future, I hope to extend it to process records in USMARC and other formats as well. The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities consist of 3 programs written in C++ and three databases: ATest: C++ program for retrieving data from OAI servers (see ATest) dc_test: Database for storing the data retrieved by ATest (see dc_test) ZTest: C++ program for retrieving data in Pica format from Z39.50 servers (see ZTest) PICA_DB: Database for storing the data retrieved by ZTest (see PICA_DB) Scantest: C++ program implementing an interpreter for controlling the other C++ programs and accessing the databases. (see Scantest) LO_DB: A database with a reduced set of tables and fields for use in the “Lectures Online” Project of the IWF Wissen und Medien gGmbH (see LO_DB) Supported Platforms and Portability The programs ATest and ZTest were developed using Microsoft Visual C++ in Microsoft Visual Studio under Microsoft Windows and the databases dc_test, PICA_DB and LO_DB were developed using Microsort SQL Servers. The program Scantest was also originally developed using MS Visual C++, but it is currently being developed using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) under Windows. Unlike ATest and ZTest, Scantest uses only Standard C++ and the C++ Standard Template Library. Back to contents Back to top Late Breaking News 2007.03.19. The author is very pleased to announce that the LDF Metadata Exchange Utilities have been accepted into the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation. They have accordingly been renamed the GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities. 2007.02.18. Added links to the CWEB documentation for the programs in Documentation. 2007.02.12. The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities contain code from the IWF Metadata Harvester, a package developed by the author while participating in a programm sponsored by the German government at the IWF Wissen und Media gGmbH, Göttingen, Germany. Since this program ended on January 31, 2007, he is developing a new package based on the IWF Metadata Harvester under the name GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities. The author would like to express his appreciation to the IWF Wissen und Media gGmbH for permitting him to publish his work there under the GNU General Public License and the GNU Free Documentation License. 2007.01.24. All variables, functions, and parser rules in the Scantest package are now documented its Texinfo manual. However, at present, there are few explanations. I will try to add more as soon as possible. The Scantest Manual in HTML format The Scantest Manual in PDF format. See Documentation for other formats. Back to contents Back to top Old News Back to contents Back to top Distribution The source code for the The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities is available from CVS repository for this project at the Savannah developers' website. The main web page for the IWF Metadata Harvester at Savannah is here. Snapshots of the individual sub-packages are available in the form of compressed archive files (gzipped tar files): ATest: atestsnp.tar.gz ZTest: ztestsnp.tar.gz Scantest: sctstsnp.tar.gz Back to contents Back to top Documentation There two user manuals for the The GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities. The first documents the programs ATest and ZTest and the databases dc_test and PICA_DB. The second documents the program Scantest. In addition, the programs ATest, ZTest, and Scantest have been written using Donald Knuth and Silvio Levy's CWEB System of Structured Documentation, and are available in printable form (see below). User manual I in HTML format User manual I in HTML format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading User manual I in PDF format User manual I in PDF format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading User manual I in PostScript format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading User manual I in DVI format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading The current complete Texinfo sources for User Manual I are available in the form of a snapshot: txinfsnp.tar.gz. User manual for Scantest in HTML format for browsing. User manual for Scantest in PDF format. User manual for Scantest in HTML format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading. User manual for Scantest in PDF format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading. User manual for Scantest in PostScript format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading. User manual for Scantest in DVI format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading. User manual for Scantest in Info format, compressed (gzipped) for downloading. The current complete Texinfo sources for the Scantest manual are contained in the snapshot of the complete sub-package: sctstsnp.tar.gz. They are in the subdirectory Scantest-1.0/DOC/TEXINFO/. ATest: The Program in PDF format for browsing ATest: The Program in PDF format, compressed (gzipped) ATest: The Program in PostScript format, compressed (gzipped) ATest: The Program in DVI format, compressed (gzipped) ZTest: The Program in PDF format for browsing ZTest: The Program in PDF format, compressed (gzipped) ZTest: The Program in PostScript format, compressed (gzipped) ZTest: The Program in DVI format, compressed (gzipped) Scantest: The Program in PDF format for browsing Scantest: The Program in PDF format, compressed (gzipped) Scantest: The Program in PostScript format, compressed (gzipped) Scantest: The Program in DVI format, compressed (gzipped) Back to contents Back to top OAI (Open Archives Initiative) Back to contents Back to top dc_test (Database) Back to contents Back to top ATest (C++ Program) Back to contents Back to top Z39.50 (Pica) Back to contents Back to top PICA_DB (Database) Back to contents Back to top ZTest (C++ Program) Back to contents Back to top ScanTest (C++ Program) Back to contents Back to top LO_DB (Database) Back to contents Back to top Mailing List The iwf-mdh-help mailing list is available for users to ask questions and get help. The address is iwf-mdh-help-*-AT-*-iwf-mdh-help@nongnu.org (Replace -*-AT-*- with @ for the email address). However, please note that you must subscribe to the list in order to be able to post to it. This is to prevent spam being sent to this list. In addition, all postings from non-subscribers are discarded with no notification, so that innocent parties, whose addresses may be being used by spammers, will not receive erroneous rejection notifications. You can subscribe to the iwf-mdh-help mailing list here. Back to contents Back to top Links Back to contents Back to top Contact If you want to contact me about the the GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities, please put “GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities” or something similar in the subject line of your email. Otherwise, it's likely to be filtered. If you want to encrypt an email to me, you can use my public key . Fingerprint: 0007 566D B0E0 96AE 3F4A EBE5 6213 D0F0 7376 08BA Laurence Finston email: lfinsto1-*-AT-*-gwdg.de s246794-*-AT-*-stud.uni-goettingen.de Please use only one address at a time! (Replace -*-AT-*- with @ for the email addresses.) Back to contents Back to top