[MOBY-dev] rfcf 1. API addition of a method called getResourcesURL:

[Edward Kawas]

Since there was a request to keep these messages in email
and away from twiki, I have added each heading to an email.

1. API addition of a method called getResourcesURL:

Returns an xml document that describes the location of
RESOURCES script that we hear so much about. It is the
resources script that contains the ontologies expressed in
RDF/XML 

example:

<someRoot>
	<resources>
  		<name>Services</name>
 
<url>http://mobycentral.icapture.ubc.ca:8090/RESOURCES/MOBY-
S/Services</url>
  	</resources>
 	<resources>
		<name>Objects</name>
	
<url>http://mobycentral.icapture.ubc.ca:8090/RESOURCES/MOBY-
S/Objects</url>
	</resources> 
  	... 
 </someRoot>


Comments:

Martin:
I understand that this is not a new requirement (we all
asked for it many times) but this is a concrete suggestion
how to make it. I agree that getting these URLs from an API
call is cleaner than just document how such URLs should look
like.
Only I would suggest slightly different XML response for
that (but no strong opinion on my side about it). What we
need are actually name-value pairs, each of them
representing a name of a resource (such as 'services; and a
URL for the RDF describing such resource. So why not just
use two attributes for that? Something like this: 



 <someRoot>
    <resources>
       <resource name="Services"
url="http://mobycentral.icapture.ubc.ca:8090/RESOURCES/MOBY-
S/Services"/>
       <resource name="Objects"
url="http://mobycentral.icapture.ubc.ca:8090/RESOURCES/MOBY-
S/Objects"/>
          ...
       <resource name="All"
url="http://mobycentral.icapture.ubc.ca:8090/RESOURCES/MOBY-
S/All"/>
    </resources> 
 </someRoot>
            

Mark:
I will add that function to the API right away, and I can
code it into the currently deployed version of MOBY, so that
it will work from the main registry, however it will take a
couple of weeks to get it into the CVS since the CVS
codebase is currently going through a major refactoring
effort in anticipation of our trip to Manchester in two
weeks...