On Jan 22, 2009, at 9:01 AM, Dorothea Salo wrote: > On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 8:54 AM, Mr Havercamp > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Therefore, I was wondering if there is some way of viewing DSpace >> item >> records as raw XML? Alternatively if someone could suggest an >> alternative method it would be much appreciated. > > This is an interesting question. The answer is yes, there IS a way, > but I'm not sure you want to rely on it. > > There's a URL hack that will get you the METS for an item given its > handle. If the usual URL for the item is > http://example.com/handle/1234/56789, then you find the METS at > http://example.com/metadata/handle/1234/56789/mets.xml. > > You could conceivably build your service on that, *but* DSpace has > been known to change URL patterns in the past, so this strikes me as a > wee bit dangerous. What I would be tempted to do instead is build a > Manakin theme that shoots out just the XML you want, and give it a > specific URL pattern to respond to. That way, if DSpace's URL hack > changes, the most you need to do is fix your theme... you DON'T have > to communicate with n developers working on projects that rely on your > repository to tell them to fix URLs in their apps. > > Anybody done anything like this and have better advice? > > Dorothea
I think this is ending up less of a hack these days, I think its one of the more efficient mechanisms in DSpace for getting at Metadata instances... If we do not get adequate, lightweight and efficient simple REST/XML/JSON/RDF support onto DSpace web applications as core functionality, we will end up having to maintain URI like "/ metadata/.../mets.xml" as an API application programmer end up interacting with externally. Another alternative given the challenge that neither the XMLUI metadata, OAI, LNI or SWORD have an adequate search/discovery API is to use the SRW/U web-application to provide search capability and xml serialization for external applications. Then at least we are not reinventing another "web-service" for folks to have to code against. Mark R. Diggory http://purl.org/net/mdiggory/homepage ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ DSpace-tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-tech
