- Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

Repetitious behavior repeatedly
by Andrew Arensburger 30 Sep '02

30 Sep '02

Currently, every script and module that requires configuration values has a snippet of code that reads /etc/koha.conf. This means that a particular operation might cause a script to read /etc/koha.conf several times. That can't be good for performance. In addition, since the snippet of code is nearly identical everywhere, it's just begging to be put into a separate function. To that end, I've written C4::Config module, which reads /etc/koha.conf (or a file of your choice, or the file pointed to by the $KOHA_CONF environment variable), and caches the results. If people think this is a Good Idea, just let me know where to send the code. Along those same lines, a lot of functions use $dbh = C4Connect; to get a handle to the Koha database. The way C4Connect is implemented, it creates a new handle each time. So if 'search.pl' finds ten results, it'll open 14 connections to the database. This seems wasteful, especially if the web server and database server aren't the same machine. So if C4::Config is well received, I'll also fix C4Connect to cache the database handle and return the same one each time, if it can. Finally, a number of scripts need to know which branches or item types exist. But I'll venture that after the initial setup, neither of these changes more than once every few months. It seems rather silly to have a script query the database for these values, when they could be cached locally. Hence, it would make sense to save this information in a Perl module on the web server, so that scripts don't have to query the database each time. And run a cron job once an hour to regenerate this module from the information in the database. Thoughts? Is this sensible, or am I full of it? -- Andrew Arensburger This message *does* represent the arensb(a)ooblick.com views of ooblick.com Real Programmers use "cat > a.out".

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Perl Bundle
by Mike Mylonas 30 Sep '02

30 Sep '02

I am just about to upload version 0.02 of the Bundle::KohaSupport which will include MARC::Record, and its dependancies, to assist those working with 1.3.x Can anyone (Paul or Steve) confirm that the issue that Paul raised ... --begin quote-- UNLESS steve has a good new, we can't use MARC::Record for instance : we had to modify it because the official release don't allow reading of a MARC record from a variable, but only from a file. The 4 lines added to enable reading from a variable were refused by MARC::Record maintainer, arguing we can save our variable to a file --end quote-- I will still make the change to include MARC::Record but can replace the release quickly with one without. Also I would appreciate it if people can test the Bundle and fire any problems/issues etc into the Koha bugzilla Cheers

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RE: [Koha-devel] Z39.50 Search Tool page broken in 1.3.0
by Eyler, Patrick 30 Sep '02

30 Sep '02

Tom, This is part of the simple acquisitions stuff that is known to be non-working. I am hoping that it will be ready in 1.3.1 ... we shall see. -pate > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Schutter [mailto:tom@platte.com] > Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2002 9:52 AM > To: koha-devel > Subject: [Koha-devel] Z39.50 Search Tool page broken in 1.3.0 > > If I click on the "Z39.50 Search Tool" link on the > acqui.simple/addbooks.pl > page, I get an "Internal Server Error" in 1.3.0. > > koha-error_log contains: > [Sat Sep 28 10:50:33 2002] [error] [client 192.168.1.18] malformed > header from script. Bad header=<a href=/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.si: > /var/www/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/acqui.simple/marcimport.pl > > BTW, why is it koha-error_log instead of koha-error.log? > > -- > Tom Schutter (mailto:tom@platte.com) > Platte River Associates, Inc. (http://www.platte.com) > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek > Welcome to geek heaven. > http://thinkgeek.com/sf > _______________________________________________ > Koha-devel mailing list > Koha-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/koha-devel

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How may I be of assistance?
by Nathan Gray 29 Sep '02

29 Sep '02

I am interested in the Koha project, and have been watching it for the last month or two. I have been unable to, or rather, unwilling to spend the time to install Koha, because I use PostgreSQL, rather than mySQL. I have very little circulation/library experience, other than checking books out from my local library. I have, however, spent some amount of time working in Perl. Most of my work has been custom modules to work under mod_perl. I have also done some work on general/public-type code, including Devel::Messenger. Because most of my work has been in modules for Perl5, I have written quite a few test suites that run using Test::Harness. I am most interested in helping with the installer. I am pleased that there is an install script now, and the "by-hand" method is deprecated. I hope we can now progress to the point where the "by-hand" method is no longer necessary. Let me know if there are other areas that need (more) help, or how I can help with the install process. kolibrie

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Re: [Koha] From the Kaitiaki
by Pat Eyler 28 Sep '02

28 Sep '02

On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Deon Dempsey wrote: > Hi Pat, > > I am trying to order barcodes to use with the software and need the > algorithm for the check digit. Could you forward this to me? I can't, but I'm forwarding this to the devel list which should get an answer for you shortly. -pate > > dd > > * * * * * * * * * > Deon Dempsey, MLIS > University of Texas at Austin > Institute for Geophysics > 4412 Spicewood Springs Road > Building 600, Room 209 > Austin, TX 78759-8500 > Phone: (512) 471-0499 > FAX: (512) 471-0999 > http://www.ig.utexas.edu > http://www.gslis.utexas.edu/~ddempsey > * * * * * * * * * >

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Z39.50 Search Tool page broken in 1.3.0
by Tom Schutter 27 Sep '02

27 Sep '02

If I click on the "Z39.50 Search Tool" link on the acqui.simple/addbooks.pl page, I get an "Internal Server Error" in 1.3.0. koha-error_log contains: [Sat Sep 28 10:50:33 2002] [error] [client 192.168.1.18] malformed header from script. Bad header=<a href=/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.si: /var/www/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/acqui.simple/marcimport.pl BTW, why is it koha-error_log instead of koha-error.log? -- Tom Schutter (mailto:tom@platte.com) Platte River Associates, Inc. (http://www.platte.com)

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[Bug 103] New: Need additional Perl module checks in installer.pl
by bugzilla-daemon＠wilbur.katipo.co.nz 27 Sep '02

27 Sep '02

http://bugs.koha.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=103 Summary: Need additional Perl module checks in installer.pl Product: Koha Version: CVS Platform: PC OS/Version: Linux - Debian Status: NEW Severity: major Priority: P2 Component: Installation AssignedTo: tonnesen(a)cmsd.bc.ca ReportedBy: tom(a)platte.com QAContact: koha-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net Version 1.3.0 and later needs additional perl module checks: MARC::Record HTML::Template ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are the QA contact for the bug, or are watching the QA contact.

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From the Kaitiaki
by Pat Eyler 27 Sep '02

27 Sep '02

Sep 27, 2002 To the Koha community Welcome, This bi-week's edition of my newsletter is a bit longer than normal. I think this is an accurate reflection of the increased pace of work being done on Koha. We've got new developers working on Koha, new libraries investigating Koha, new projects within Koha, and more public awareness of Koha. I hope that I can do justice to all of the efforts that are going on. As usual, if I managed to miss something, or if I get something wrong, my apologies. Please don't hesitate to contact me at kaitiaki(a)koha.org if you have any questions, concerns, or large piles of money you'd like to give away ;) 1.2 Work is moving along on 1.2.3, with RC14 having been recently released. Steve has also made several improvements to the Koha Demo CD. It is now capable of running a client to demonstrate Koha on a single box. We're still looking for testers and feedback. If you haven't tried the CD yet, please give it a whirl and let us know what you think. It would be nice to be able to clean up any problems, and to develop some solid documentation for it, but we'll need everyones help. 1.4 1.3.0 has been released! This is a major step in the development of the 1.4 series. For the first time, general developers and testers can start making use of the expanded API available with Koha. At this point, there are no user visible changes but new 1.4 centric tools should start appearing in 1.3 releases soon. Please note, the 1.3 series is *not* intended for production use. It is alpha software and should be treated as such. On the other hand, if you have the hardware and time, we'd love to hear about your experiences testing 1.3.0 or any of the 1.3 series releases. Documentation Andrew Aranson is a new contributor and has been working on developer level documentation (called POD). Ewan Tempero is also working on developer level documentation, his efforts have been targeted at developing use cases describing the expected behavior of various programs. As Andrew and Ewan produce more and more information, it will make it significantly easier for new developers to get started with Koha. Nicholas Rosasco has also stepped up the pace on his documentation efforts. He's getting ready to make another release and has asked for final comments from anyone who's read it. (If you're listed in the credits, he's especially interested in hearing about any mistakes or typos.) Translations We've just had a volunteer from South Africa step up to work on Koha. With the recent move toward Open Source Software by the South African government (see http://www.oss.gov.za/ for more details), we hope to see users, translators, and developers coming on-board. The french Koha list is becoming much more active. There are now over thirty users on the list, and email is flying around at an astounding rate. If you're interested in translations, please get involved. The following groups are currently active: French translation fr.koka.org German translation de.koha.org To subscribe to a mailing list for one of these languages, please send email to koha-subscribe@<language site> (koha-subscribe(a)fr.koha.org for example). Bear in mind, discussion on these lists is in the native language of the list, please respect this. We're hoping to get es.koha.org and za.koha.org running soon. General translation discussions should occur (in english) on the koha-translate mailing list hosted at sourceforge. This list also receives documents to be translated (such as this one). If you want to translate a Koha announcement, please contact the author. If you want to translate one of these newsletters, please do. I ask only that you send me a copy of the translation so that I can post it to an appropriate website. Community Last week we got a mention in the Biblio-tech monthly review (see http://www.biblio-tech.com/ for the story). Rosalie Blake (of HLT) presented a talk on OSS and Koha to her local library association. We seem to be cropping up in the press more and more often. If you're at all interested in helping keep us in the public eye (and getting a bit of press for yourself), please contact me to discuss a press release covering your recent decision to adopt Koha or your implementation of Koha. Thanks to those who responded to me about Linux, OSS, or Library conferences. We're coordinating presentations now for at least four appearances. We'd welcome more though, so please feel free to contact me if you're interested. (Even making a presentation to a Linux or Perl users group would help.) There's also been another investment in Koha development. An anonymous patron has stepped forward to sponsor a core developer's work on extending Koha. With more organizations catching the vision of Koha as a cooperative effort, I think we'll be seeing more of this happen in the days to come. 120 day review Well, I've been serving as the Kaitiaki for about 120 days now, so I thought I might do a quick self evaluation and comparison against my stated goals. When I initially talked about taking on the role, I laid out goals in three areas; Code Cleanliness, Feature Inclusion, and Koha Uptake. I'll address each of these separately. Code Cleanliness: I had (and still have) a vision of a code base that's easy to read, easy to modify, and easy to verify. There have been a couple of improvements in this area, but most of them have occurred in spite of my inaction. I'm encouraged to see efforts at writing tests and programmer documentation, and plan on encouraging this effort as we move forward. Feature Inclusion: Koha has certainly seen a number of new additions; the installer, the upgrade script, templating, etc. I hope that the RFPs from Nelsonville will spur both more development and greater sponsorship from other libraries. With the recent start of the 1.3 release series, I think we'll be seeing a lot more changes soon. Koha Uptake: I think this has been the place where I've really come through on my vision. I had wanted to put Koha in front of a lot of eye balls. With stories in a variety of press outlets, press releases, and planned presence at several conferences in the next six months, I think that we've really begun to establish ourselves as a valid option in the eyes of libraries. Overall, I think I've been successful in my role thus far. I'm honored to have the opportunity to work with so many talented and wonderful people. I'd like to especially thank Chris Cormack (the 1.2 Release Manager), Paul Poulain (the 1.4 Release Manager), and Nicolas Rosasco (the Marketing & Recruiting Manager) -- without their efforts the last 120 days would not have gone nearly as well. I hope that you're as excited about our progress as I am. I really do think that we're looking at a really bright future. happy hacking, Pat Eyler Kaitiaki/manager the Koha project

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Problems with 1.3.0
by Tom Schutter 26 Sep '02

26 Sep '02

There seems to be a problem with the 1.3.0 tarball on SourceForge. I have done a virgin install on a new machine. If I click on Acquisitions and I get an Internal Server Error. The following is appended to /var/log/apache/koha-error_log: Can't locate MARC/Record.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /var/www/koha/intranet/modules /usr/local/lib/perl/5.6.1 /usr/local/share/perl/5.6.1 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at /var/www/koha/intranet/modules/C4/Biblio.pm line 100. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /var/www/koha/intranet/modules/C4/Biblio.pm line 100. Compilation failed in require at /var/www/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/loadmodules.pl line 26. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /var/www/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/loadmodules.pl line 26. [Fri Sep 27 17:47:17 2002] [error] [client 192.168.1.18] Premature end of script headers: /var/www/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/loadmodules.pl The same message occurs if the systempreferences/acquisitions is set to simple or normal. "find /var/www/koha -name MARC" returns nothing. "tar tvzf /tmp/koha-1.3.0.tar.gz | grep MARC/" returns nothing. # ls -l /tmp/koha-1.3.0.tar.gz -rw------- 1 tom develop 1958850 Sep 26 13:39 /tmp/koha-1.3.0.tar.gz The file size on http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=16466 is the same. Any ideas? -- Tom Schutter (mailto:tom@platte.com) Platte River Associates, Inc. (http://www.platte.com)

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Free Software in .au government
by Pat Eyler 26 Sep '02

26 Sep '02

For the .au representatives here, it looks like there may be an opportunity to get a bit of visibility at: http://www.itnews.com.au/story.cfm?ID=10869 If you decide to go (hopefully to talk up Koha), please let us know how things go. (Anyone with 'Koha inside gov't' want to give some pointers?) -pate Pat Eyler Kaitiaki/manager migrant Linux sys admin the Koha project ruby, shell, and perl geek http://www.koha.org http://pate.eylerfamily.org

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