The IMesh Toolkit

Perl tools

trans.pl version 0.1

This tool carries out simple transformations replacing the text contents of an element in an XML record according to a list of replacements specified in a configuration file.
Please see further details in the on-line documentation.

Enhancements

Version 0.1 assumes that any tags indicated in the configuration file refer to child elements of the <metadata> element in an OAI record. To be able to transform other portions of the record a distinction may have to be made between child elements of the <metadata> element and for example the <about> element. We are considering changes in the configuration file so that such distincitons can be made.

Version 0.1 does not support changes to the record which introduce new elements. The configuration file format will be elaborated further in order to support the expression of these kinds of changes.

Using XML as the format of the configuration file
XML could provide a flexible way in which to express the changes that should be made to a record, making it easier to support the enhancements listed above.

Make this tool available as a web Service.
Provide a SOAP interface to the tool so that it can be used by other applications, without having to download code.

XSLT Tools

The XSLT tools will consist of a series of XSLT Stylesheets. Stylesheets are made up of a set of instructions which determine how an XML record is transformed. The XSLT stylesheet is applied to an OAI record, generating a new record in which the required changes have taken place.
The transformations are written as rules in the stylesheets, and the stylesheet rules are modified by editing the stylesheet, to effect different kinds of transformations.

Stylesheet 1

Stylesheet 1 contains an instruction to modify the content of one element. You can edit the stylesheet to pick which dc element is affected, change more than one dc element, and specify how the content of the element is changed. Please read more on how to use the stylesheets in the Step-by-Step online guide.

Enhancements

The stylesheet can be expanded so that additional tags can be added to the OAI record, as described in the requirements in the introduction.

A web interface that facilitates the modification of the stylesheet would make the process of adapting the stylesheet easier and less demanding for the user. Through a web interface the user would make changes in the stylesheet through a graphical and menu-driven interface, instead of directly editing the XSLT file. The advantage is that the complexities of XSLT would be hidden, the intention is to remove a potential barrier and widen access to the tools.