README

MEDIN METADATA RDBMS XML GENERATION TOOL
========================================

This package provides a tool to extract MEDIN XML metadata from a
Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and optionally validate
it.

This README is aimed at users who want to install the tool on a system
on which Python has already been installed. The tool has also been
packaged in a stand-alone binary for Windows users. See the
README-Windows.txt file for details.

PREREQUISITES
-------------

The tool requires Python version >= 2.6 and < 3. There are also some
library dependencies that the tool relies on:

- libxml2 (http://xmlsoft.org/python.html) for xml interaction

- libxslt (http://xmlsoft.org/XSLT/python.html) for schematron
  validation

- suds (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/suds) for web service interaction

- sqlalchemy (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/SQLAlchemy) for object
  relational mapping

- cx_Oracle (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/cx_Oracle) for connecting to
  oracle databases. Other drivers would be needed for other database
  systems. A list of supported drivers and databases can be found at
  http://www.sqlalchemy.org/docs/core/engines.html#supported-dbapis

To make life a little easier for testing copies of sqlalchemy and suds
are supplied with the download. Note that these will *not* be
installed on the system, however!

DOWNLOAD
--------

The tool can be downloaded from
http://www.geodata.soton.ac.uk/MEDIN_rdbms/metadata-tool.tar.gz

INSTALLATION
------------

Untar the package download file and change into the directory. The
following command installs the tool on your system:

python setup.py install

TESTING AND BASIC USAGE
-----------------------

Assuming you have libxml2 and libxslt installed and you have changed
to the untarred package directory, you should be able to test the tool
without installing it e.g.

./medin-metadata --help

Use of the tool should be reasonably straight forward if you're
familiar with the command line and the --help option!

It comes bundled with a copy of the EDMED database as a sqlite file
which has been used as a reference implementation for the medin schema
defined at
http://www.oceannet.org/marine_data_standards/medin_approved_standards/documents/medin_usermanaged_tables_user.doc

You can access this sample database as follows:

./medin-metadata medin example

Assuming you have a database schema identical to the BODC EDMED one
and are using an Oracle database called 'EDMED' on the machine
'myhost' with the username 'me' and the password 'secret' you should
be able to connect to it as follows:

./medin-metadata medin oracle://me:secret@myhost/EDMED

CONTACT
-------

Specific queries on regarding the tool can be directed to Homme
Zwaagstra (hrz@geodata.soton.ac.uk). More general queries can be
directed to <geodata@soton.ac.uk>.