Yeah, I saw that in the perl4lib email, but we don't actually use Net::OAI::Harvester in Koha. We use HTTP::OAI for the OAI-PMH server, and I'm using HTTP::OAI for the harvester as well (although it certainly has some issues...). David Cook Systems Librarian Prosentient Systems 72/330 Wattle St, Ultimo, NSW 2007
-----Original Message----- From: koha-devel-bounces@lists.koha-community.org [mailto:koha-devel- bounces@lists.koha-community.org] On Behalf Of Tajoli Zeno Sent: Friday, 15 January 2016 11:03 PM To: koha-devel <koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org> Subject: [Koha-devel] Fwd: Call for testers: next release of Net::OAI::Harvester Perl module may break legacy custom handlers
-------- Messaggio Inoltrato -------- Oggetto: Call for testers: next release of Net::OAI::Harvester Perl module may break legacy custom handlers Data: Fri, 15 Jan 2016 12:38:17 +0100 Mittente: Thomas Berger <ThB@Gymel.com> Rispondi-a: ThB@Gymel.com Organizzazione: Gymel.com A: Perl for libraries <perl4lib@perl.org>, Using XML in libraries <xml4lib@listserv.nd.ed>
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[Apologies for cross-posting]
The Perl module Net::OAI::Harvester implements a client framework for the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and was authored and originally maintained by Ed Summers. It has been available on CPAN ever since 2003 and its last stable version 1.15 has been released almost four years ago: < http://search.cpan.org/~thb/OAI-Harvester-1.15/ >.
Since one of the repositories used for testing vanished from the web some time ago and this is breaking the test suite a new version has to be released fairly soon.
Over time I had been tackling various minor issues and published developer releases on CPAN, cf. the list at the end of this mail or the Changes document linked at the CPAN page for the current release 1.16_12: < http://search.cpan.org/~thb/OAI-Harvester-1.16_12/ >
However the sum of these changes is not negligible and specifically their impact on "custom metadata handlers" (which are to be used when processing other metadata formats than oai_dc) may affect applications using the module:
Up to version 1.15 the metadataHandler was inconsistently fed with input :
- GetRecord exposed the almost complete XML response to the Handler (including start_document/end_document events) - ListRecords exposed the (OAI)record element (header, metadata and optional about containers) but did not propagate start_document or end_document events.
In both cases the events for the header tags itself and for the optional setSpec subelements had not been forwarded
Version 1.20 introduces a modified behavior for metadataHandler and an additional recordHandler: - a metadataHandler will see only the (single) subelement of the OAI metadata element (so for an deleted record it might never be invoced at all) - a recordHandler will see the OAI record element and its subelements
Therefore a metadataHandler will now be confined to the metadata fragment(s) of the response, and the new recordHandler approximates the old behavior of ListRecords, however OAI-PMH:identifier and OAI- PMH:datestamp will now be properly encapsulated within their OAI- PMH:header element.
Additionally, two new methods responseDate() and request() allow access to the corresponding top-level OAI-PMH elements in all response types. A SAX filter of class Net::OAI::Record::DocumentHelper may be used to inject start_document and end_document events into the chain if they are needed.
As a temporary measure, you may set $Net::OAI::Harvester::OLDmetadataHandler =1 to change the behavior of handlers passed as "metadataHandler" into that of a recordHandler. <<<<<<
Obviously the change of semantics for a metadataHandler to deal with the "metadata" elements of the response instead of the "record" elements is a design decision and may be questioned by users of the module.
The current version also contains several changes which solve deficiencies of Net::OAI::Harvester 1.15 but possibly break existing workarounds for these deficiencies. For example officially (per documentation) you never could acccess the responseDate of the OAI-PMH result, but due to a sloppy implementation of processing for the identify verb it was possible to extract it in this case by an undocumented method. The current version supplies a dedicated responseDate() accessor for all verbs but at the same time fixes the behavior in the identify case.
I may be overly optimistic but my impression is that the changes between the current 1.15 and the coming version (most probably numbered 1.20) do actually fix many issues but the fear is realistic (I experienced that myself with an old application of mine using the module) that these fixes may conflict with workarounds introduced by users to make things work before.
***
So please, if you are currently using Net::OAI::Harvester *and* had been forced to introduce workarounds or tweak internals of the module, perform thorough testing before upgrading to the coming stable version, preferably already now with the developer version 1.16_12.
And, please, please: provide feedback if you should run into trouble, either via the CPAN request tracker for the module at < https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=OAI-Harvester > or by direct mail.
Sorry for the inconvenience viele Gruesse Thomas Berger
Changes to Net::OAI::Harvester since version 1.15
1.16_12 Tue, Jan 12 00:20:05 CET 2016 - - dealing with CPANTS Kwalitee issues, esp. version number mess - - new filter class Net::OAI::Record::DocumentHelper for tweaking
1.16_11 Tue, Jan 12 00:20:05 CET 2016 - - minor cleanup
1.16_10 Mon, Jan 11 01:29:46 CET 2016 - - renamed alldata() method for accessing recordHandler results to recorddata() - - better propagation of namespace prefix mapping events - - Net::OAI::NamespaceFilter with a result() method - - Net::OAI::NamespaceFilter tested with XML::SAX::Writer - - AUTHOR formatting
1.16_09 Sun, Feb 14 17:29:39 CET 2014 - - Net::OAI::NamespaceFilter as kind of generic metadata handler - - Queries are now constructed basing on a copy of the Harvester's baseURL - - pass parameters to URI->query_form() more reproducably, (esp. "verb" should now always be first to accommodate some allegedly broken repositories) - - temporary? tests for correctness of LWP operations
1.16_07 Tue, Apr 30 01:26:40 CEST 2013 - - added new methods: response(), responseDate(), error() - - Smoke still tests failed on 'Bad Host' tests (wrong error codes induced by HTTP proxies?) - - aligned behavior of metadataHandler for listRecords() and getRecord() - - introducing alternative recordHandler for listRecords() and getRecord() - - removed erroneous resumptionToken handling for identify()
1.16_04 Fri Dec 7 09:49:03 CET 2012 - - consider HTTP proxies in design of t/003.error.t - - 'Bad Host' tests failing b/c error code 500 is not the expected code 404 (due to some recent change in LWP)?
1.16_01 Mon Apr 2 23:14:35 CEST 2012 - - Modules were not namespace aware. - - Add HTTPRetryAfter() method (catches HTTP Retry-After header) - - Check responses for Content-Type and charset before parsing - - Net::OAI::Header handed up (empty) header elements and other stuff to the request's metadataHandler - - SKIP tests when HTTP errors are encountered
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