[Zope] Zope Database in XML

Ross J. Reedstrom reedstrm@rice.edu
Tue, 23 Mar 1999 15:57:29 -0600


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@rice.edu> 
NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer
Computer and Information Technology Institute
Rice University, 6100 S. Main St.,  Houston, TX 77005