[OAI-implementers] Questions from a novice

[Tim Brody]

OAI is based on the HTTP protocol (i.e. the Web).

There are a number of implementations of the protocol that use Perl, but
there are also implementations in Java, PHP, C (I think). You should be able
to implement OAI in any programming language that is supported by a Web
server.

In OAI 1.x, and 2.0, OAI requests are in the form of a URI (i.e. you can
type them into a web browser's location and they'll work). The Web server
responds with XML, just the same as it would normally respond with HTML to
human clients.

In ASP you should be able to change the header that the Web server sends
out, including the MIME type (which must be text/xml for OAI responses), or
change the status code in the event of an error. You will also need to make
sure you are producing XML in the UTF-8 encoding - there may be an option in
ASP to do this.


n.b. I would suggest waiting for OAI 2.0 (June 1st) before putting a lot of
effort into building a 1.1 OAI export.

All the best,
Tim.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles, Daphne" <daphne.charles@rchme.co.uk>
To: <oai-implementers@oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 11:34 AM
Subject: [OAI-implementers] Questions from a novice


>
> Hi,
>
> Having read the Harvesting Protocol I have a couple of questions. (I tried
> to submit these to the OAI website, but no response, so hence the general
> broadcast)
>
> Can this only be implemented with PERL CGI scripts?
>
> We are building our site with Active Server Pages on an Oracle database,
and
> ASPs could certainly be used to produce output in XML format.  Oracle also
> has some excellent XML tools.
>
> How is the information returned from the repository following a request?
> ASPs could generate output in the correct format with an XML extension,
but
> this would be on the repository server, so how does it get transferred to
> the service provider?  Similarly for status codes if there is no XML
output.
>
> Regards
>
> Daphne
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Daphne Charles Tel: +44 1793 414894
>   Senior Developer Fax: +44 1793
> 414906
>   National Monuments Record Centre                   Email:
> daphne.charles@rchme.co.uk
>   English Heritage
>   Kemble Drive, Swindon, Wilts SN2 2GZ
>  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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