[Koha-devel] Fwd: Call for testers: next release of Net::OAI::Harvester Perl module may break legacy custom handlers
David Cook
dcook at prosentient.com.au
Mon Jan 18 23:29:35 CET 2016
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 at lists.koha-community.org [mailto:koha-devel-
> bounces at lists.koha-community.org] On Behalf Of Tajoli Zeno
> Sent: Friday, 15 January 2016 11:03 PM
> To: koha-devel <koha-devel at 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 at Gymel.com>
> Rispondi-a: ThB at Gymel.com
> Organizzazione: Gymel.com
> A: Perl for libraries <perl4lib at perl.org>, Using XML in libraries
> <xml4lib at 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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