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RE: [Zope] Zope Database in XML
by Theodore Patrick 24 Mar '99

24 Mar '99

Ahhhh.... Oracle's approach to this is an add-on to 8i called IFS(Internet File System). It renders a database to http(woo...woo, Zope does this in its native functionality). Although, they are working on a renderer for native file systems. This would enable object methods for making files on the fly. As Zope already accomplishes this(rendering objects), thus presenting the view of the oo database is thus a filter. HTTP,FTP,CIFS,NFS,POP,IMAP all are protocols that speak the requesting clients language. Make Zope the engine and supply a framework in Zserver to plug in the server renderer. Samba is a great example. It renders between file systems quite well, although it is rather a tough and complex animal and very specialized. Although it would work along the same lines. Actually, there is a PERL module to simulate file systems already. It could be good start. Considering that most file viewing on Windows is moving to HTML, the Network Drive is looking more and more like a simple security login with a connection that is persistent, rather than actually mapping the drive. A distributed (native-CIFS/NFS) file system would change the industry. Actually it already has (http) through a browser window. I am wondering when it will occur as seamlessly as not having to be in a browser. If an ORB existed that could render data to the requesting protocol, it would be a great product, I think ZOPE could do this through the ZServer architecture. The Server in this case is the renderer, the ORB is the fulfillment component and the OO Database is the storage mechanism. The protocol plug-in is stored in Zserver and renders the appropriate view of the data. PROTOCOL | SERVER | ORB | OO DATABASE | </OS ADD-ON CLIENT> HTTP | ZSERVER | --- ZOPE --- | Client dependencies FTP | ZSERVER | --- ZOPE --- | Applications designed to be client/server!!! IMAP | ZSERVER | --- ZOPE --- | POP | ZSERVER | --- ZOPE --- | </OS ADD-ON CLIENT> <OS NATIVE> CIFS | ZSERVER | --- ZOPE --- | No Client dependencies - Native Applications NFS | ZSERVER | --- ZOPE --- | CLIENT/SERVER functionality yet no dependencies! </OS NATIVE> OS support is the dependency! If the rendering engine were modular, ZOPE would always be first in delivering support for new protocols and client functionality(DAV Support!!!), without changing the structure of the underlying database. The data exchange between the ZSERVER AND ZOPE would have to be managed. "You wouldn't want to serve a POP client an Excel file unless it is an attachment just as you wouldn't want to render a query to a FILE SYSTEM accept ones that have been designated as OK." Get It? It would save the world a little time and effort if one system could render data to a diverse set of clients. Rather than making a new server every time a new client arrives. I could simply build a layer of translation(XML) for a client and BINGO! New client/server. At the Native OS level this has the most power. Rendering live data into an Excel file on the fly is a real world application that would be a huge hit right now. "I want this months sales report... open Sales.xls BINGO!!! The data is there." I would really like to edit html in Dreamweaver as I regularly do and have it render into Zope. If you had file system level support every known application could be stored inside of Zope or have access to the data inside of ZOPE. Here is the interesting one: If you can have direct file access you could: Open a client application out of an oo database that rendered a view of the database back at you. (Sounds awfully like an OS!!!) Just Thoughts..... Theodore E. Patrick email: tpatrick(a)indigonetworks.com <mailto:tpatrick@indigonetworks.com> phone: 615-777-0070 ext.125 Indigo Networks - The Ultimate Choice In Who Sees You. http://www.indigonetworks.com -----Original Message----- From: Ross J. Reedstrom [mailto:reedstrm@rice.edu] Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 3:57 PM To: Zope Mailing List Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope Database in XML Theodore Patrick wrote: > > What I am referring to is rendering objects in the ZOPE database to a file > system view. The object database could be managed as a Network Drive(except > that the view would be data in the ZOPE object database). You could through > some translation (xml or other) render the object database to CIFS/NFS. <snipped various interesting examples of filesystem access to zope> > > I guess what I am asking is: Can Zope act like a CIFS/NFS file > system(virtual file system) with a layer of translation for converting Zope > Objects to File system objects directly (XML or other)? > You seem to be asking for a hybrid of Zope and Samba ;-) Seriously, we have Samba, so one answer would be a filesystem driver for the undelying OS that talks to the Zope server to get its information. This could be re-exported as a samba share, or NFS or AFS or Coda or what-have-you. I've been musing about it for linux for a little bit - I'm going to try and convince one of the bright sparks around here to take a crack at it. For NT hosted Zope, you'd need to write an equivalent filesystem driver - apparently the the SDK for that is ~$1000. Oh, and parts of this are already present in the ZServer - it talks FTP, and there was some discussion of exposing object properties as virtual docs of some sort. Check the list archives. Ross -- Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm(a)rice.edu> NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer Computer and Information Technology Institute Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005 _______________________________________________ Zope maillist - Zope(a)zope.org http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope (For developer-specific issues, use the companion list, zope-dev(a)zope.org - http://www.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-dev )

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Using database-connection from external methods
by raver＠box.dust.za.net 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

Hi! This will hopefulle be my last questions in a while... Is there some way I can reach/use ZMySQL connection method from within an external method? Rephrase - I have a connection established within Zope - I want to call an external method that handles some sql-queries - is this possible, or should I still have the external method handle it's own connection? Can external methods set/send back variables to the calling document/method? Another question while I'm at it - is the DateTime module in 1.10.2 broke in some way? (I get an error if I try to make a new property with the date type set) Help is much appreciated Sture Lygren

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RE: [Zope] Zope Database in XML
by Theodore Patrick 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

What I am referring to is rendering objects in the ZOPE database to a file system view. The object database could be managed as a Network Drive(except that the view would be data in the ZOPE object database). You could through some translation (xml or other) render the object database to CIFS/NFS. 1. Run applications directly from the ZOPE file system. 2. Modify and Render objects through a regular file explorer or file manager potentially an external text editor or file editor(word,excel,other). 3. Objects that had no meaning to the file system view would not be rendered. Attributes to file properties. This is a feature of 8i that oracle is pushing. The rendering of a database to a user that does not realize it is a database. ie. 1. Open a spreadsheet in the Network Drive and see a current version of a file and its data. 2. Intranet is now a shared drive - depending on your privileges - you see different objects. I guess what I am asking is: Can Zope act like a CIFS/NFS file system(virtual file system) with a layer of translation for converting Zope Objects to File system objects directly (XML or other)? If I understand it, this is how the database is rendering objects to HTTP or now(Zserver)FTP. Why can't you render them as a Network file system? Any thought? -----Original Message----- From: Jim Fulton [mailto:jim@digicool.com] Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 2:39 PM To: Theodore Patrick Cc: Zope Mailing List Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope Database in XML Theodore Patrick wrote: > > If you can access the database directly through this interface(xml/pickle), > couldn't you *potentially* map a network drive to the interface(cifs/nfs). > This could allow you to render data in and out of the database through the > file system interface rather than ftp/http. I'm not sure what you are getting at here. You can export and import data to a file system now, using the Zope database format, which is built on Python's pickle format. The XML conversion feature just gets the data into a slightly more editable form. One key difference between http/ftp and the file system is that Zope trusts the file system much more and is willing to get pickles (binary, XML, whatever) from it. This is a sort of a security feature. In the future, I'd like to make a variation on the Python pickler that was easier to configure to be pickier and safer to use with network supplied pickles. Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@digicool.com Python Powered! Technical Director (888) 344-4332 http://www.python.org Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com http://www.zope.org Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my permission. Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for repeats.

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RE: [Zope] Database connections
by Paul Everitt 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

Oleg writes: > I've finished large project using pure CGI concept (I used Neale's > html.py). Now I (and my boss) are thinking of switching to Zope, or at > least ZTemplates. > > While playing with Zope and SQL (I am using Postgres, hence ZPygres > Database Adapter), I found that Zope, when loaded into memory > by Zope.cgi > (I am using Apache, and need to use in the future) opens a database > connection for every Folder where I created Connection object. Ahh, no need. Just put one Database Connection object in the top folder and all the subfolders will "acquire" it. That is, any SQL Method defined lower down can use it. > It is bad, as I have many databases, so Zope eats up > memory. Another > problem - what would do Zope if I restart Postgres (so all current > connections break)? Would Zope reestablish connections or just report > error? It should re-establish the connection. If it doesn't then there's a bug. This works fine with all the Database Adapters I've used. > How could I limit number of connections Zope opens? How could I There is one connection per Database Connection object. > define a timeout, after which Zope close a connection if there is no Hmm, this is quite a hard thing to do, unfortunately. > activity between Zope and Postgres? and reestablish connection when > application ask for SQL data? > > With ZTemplates and CGI all these questions has one easy > (but not so > nice) answer - there is no constant connection, a connection > established on > every CGI invocation. Of course this means the CPU gets a tremendous beating on every request and the response time goes down. > PS. BTW, I wrote short introduction to Zope in Russian: > http://sun.med.ru/~phd/Russian/Zope/ > Any Russian here to verify my understanding of Zope? Mind if I add a blurb to the Zope News about it? --Paul

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ZSQL direct traveral question
by John Eikenberry 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

I've been messing around with using direct traveral on the ZSQL methods. I'm having a problem getting the traveral to work with anything more than one level of depth, eg: http://zope.kavi.com/mem/2/comp_admin/contacts/ Where 'mem' is the ZSQL query (that takes one arg), and the arg is '2'. But it does work in this case: http://zope.kavi.com/comp_admin/contacts/mem/2/ Is this a restriction on the use of ZSQL direct traveral, or am I doing something wrong. If this is a restriction on how you can use direct traversal, I was wondering why, and if it'd be possible to 'fix' this. If so, I'm willing to do it and supply a patch, I assume this is functionality comes from Zope/lib/python/Shared/DC/ZRDB/DA.py, either in the DA.__call__ or in the Traverse object. I'll have to mess around with it a bit to figure out exactely whats going on (but I figured I'd ask about it first). --- John Eikenberry [jae(a)kavi.com - http://taos.kavi.com/~jae/] ______________________________________________________________ "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both." --B. Franklin

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RE: [Zope] Zope Database in XML
by Theodore Patrick 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

If you can access the database directly through this interface(xml/pickle), couldn't you *potentially* map a network drive to the interface(cifs/nfs). This could allow you to render data in and out of the database through the file system interface rather than ftp/http. Just a thought! Theodore E. Patrick email: tpatrick(a)indigonetworks.com <mailto:tpatrick@indigonetworks.com> phone: 615-777-0070 ext.125 Indigo Networks - The Ultimate Choice In Who Sees You. http://www.indigonetworks.com

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Zope Database in XML
by Jim Fulton 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

A side project of mine is to allow conversion to and from Zope databases (and export files) and XML. This will allow people to more easily access their data without Zope and correct problems, such as moved or renamed software modules, that prevent data from being unpicklable. I've completed a first cut at a tool for converting a Zope database to XML format. It is provided in the file 'bbb.py' in a 'utilities' directory that will be included in the distribution directory of the next Zope release. If you want to get this now, you can get it via Zope public CVS access. See http://www.zope.org/Community/Services/CVS_public_access for details. To run the tool, use: python utilities/bbb.py -rxml var/Data.bbb For now, the tool provides a way to "get at" your data without Zope and get a bit more of an idea of how Zope organizes data in the database. The file uses a module 'ppml.py' (Python pickle markup language :) that must by in the same directory as bbb.py or in the Python path. ppml.py provides for conversion from Python pickles to XML. It will eventually provide conversion from XML to Python pickles. Comments from members of the XML SIG (those who happen to spend time here too) would be welcome. I haven't written a formal DTD for this XML format. I would like to use a standard Python XML pickle format, but I'm not sure if such a thing exists yet. I took the approach of conversion to and from Python pickle format for two reasons: - It allows me to do conversion to and from database format without actually creating any (application objects). This is much faster than creating actual objects and does not require that any application Python modules needed to unpickle objects be around or working. For example, this allows conversion of objects that are not unpicklable. - It means that many of the implementation details of pickling can be avoided. Of course, in combination with the Python pickle modules, pickling objects to XML is straightforward: import pickle, ppml print ppml.ToXMLloads(pickle.dumps(myobject)) Enjoy. Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@digicool.com Python Powered! Technical Director (888) 344-4332 http://www.python.org Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com http://www.zope.org Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my permission. Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for repeats.

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Trying to understand the Scheduler
by Pedro Vale Lima 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

Zope is great. It's so great that I guess I'm trying to use it for doing something different from what zope it's expected to do. I want to make some SQL scripts to access different databases and collect the data in a new table. That I can do with the following external method that calls see_data and put_data ZSQLMethods def get_data(self): result = self.see_data() self.put_data(value=result._data[0][1]) return None Then I wish to make this kind of data management automatic every hour. I dug in the sources and I found out the Scheduler class, which I think is what I need (is it?). But I'm having some trouble using it. This was the external method I tried (without success). def eventGetData(self): rev = RegularEvent(get_data,(),interval=60) self.schedule(rev) return(None) It seems that RegularEvent is not available. Besides, is schedule available trough acquisition in the folder? Can someone give me some light on this. I don't even know if it's possible to use the Scheduler with external methods so it would be great at least to know I'm in the right path. Thanks -- Pedro Vale Lima eq3pvl(a)eq.uc.pt

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#tree - trouble
by Sture Lygren 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

Hi! How come this code (from within index_html) doesn't show files and folders within my folder?    (  ) doesn't work either) This is using Zope 1.10.2 on linux (2.0.35) All I get is a blank screen - how come??

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Re: [Zope] #tree - trouble
by Martijn Pieters 23 Mar '99

23 Mar '99

At 12:25 23-3-99 , Sture Lygren wrote: >Hi! > >How come this code (from within index_html) doesn't show files and folders >within my folder? > > > > > >(  ) doesn't work either) > >This is using Zope 1.10.2 on linux (2.0.35) > First, you should use branches_expr, instead of branches. And second, it depends on what type of DTML object you have this code in. Is this code in a DTML Method or a DTML Document? If it is a Document, you'll have to specify the Folder you want the tree to start at::    -- Martijn Pieters, Web Developer | Antraciet http://www.antraciet.nl | Tel: +31-35-6254545 Fax: +31-35-6254555 | mailto:mj@antraciet.nl http://www.antraciet.nl/~mj | PGP: http://wwwkeys.nl.pgp.net:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xA8A32149 ------------------------------------------

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