DB Cache Contrib

Reusable code that treats TWiki forms as if they were table rows in a database.

WARNING: TWiki-4 only. If you want to use this extension with an earlier version of TWiki, please see an earlier version of this topic

Summary of Contents

This module supports structured queries over a database built on the fly from the forms in TWiki topics. It does not support any tags, as it is provided as a service for other plugins that want to treat a TWiki web as a simple database; for example, the TWiki:Plugins/FormQueryPlugin, which supports the display of query results.

The plugin encapsulates code that was formerly in the "engine room" of the Form Query Plugin. It has been abstracted out in the belief that it will be useful to anyone who wants to do simple search operations from a plugin.

Features

• Perform complex queries on the TWiki database
• Cache TWiki topics for rapid queries

How the database gets built

You can think of the database as an array of all the topics in a web. Each array entry is a map (or hash in perl terms) that maps a set of field names to values.

Each topic in the web automatically gets a number of standard fields, generated by reading the metadata from the topic (see T Wiki Meta Data)

• name - name of the topic
• parent - name of parent topic
• _up - reference to the Map of the parent topic, if it exists
• attachments - array of Maps, each of which contains:
  • _up - reference to the Map for the topic
  • name - attachment name
  • attr - e.g hidden
  • comment - attachment comment
  • path - client path used to upload attachment
  • size - size in Kb
  • user - who uploaded the attachment
  • version - e.g. 1.3
• info - Map containing:
  • _up - reference to the Map for the topic
  • author - most recent author
  • date - date of last change
  • format - topic format version
  • version - topic version number
• moved - Map containing:
  • _up - reference to the Map for the topic
  • by - who moved it
  • date - when they moved it
  • from - where they moved it from
  • to - where they moved it to
• form - form type
• form name - e.g. if a "MyForm" is attached, this will be MyForm. This is a reference to a Map containing a key for each field in the form. Each key maps to the value in the form data for that key. The Map will also have an _up reference to the Map for the topic.
• text - raw text of the topic)

The sub-Maps created for info, form name, moved, and each row in attachments also have a reference back to the topic Map, called _up.

Other fields may be added by subclasses. Refer to the documentation for the plugin that is using the DBCache for more details.

The cache

To achieve best perfomance the plugin caches the database read from the TWiki topics. It creates this cache in a file in the web, _DBCache. If any topic changes in the web, this cache is automatically rebuilt. The cache file can be deleted at any point with no ill effects.

Extending or customising

Extension or customisation is welcome, as long as all extensions are described and code provided back to the author.

The module is shipped with a perl build file, which should be used for installation and testing. Testing is done using CPAN:Test::Unit, and is invoked using the 'test' build target. Writing tests is a useful way of feeding back bugs as well. I can't encourage you enough to maintain and extend the tests!

Detailed Documentation

Clients use the DBCache by defining a subclass of the TWiki::Contrib::DBCache class. The following POD documentation describes the methods of this class and the various other classes provided by the plugin.. %$POD%

Settings

• Set STUB = %$STUB%
• Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Reusable code that treats TWiki forms as if they were table rows in a database

Installation Instructions

• Download the ZIP file from the Plugin web (see below). Contents:

  File:	Description:

%$MANIFEST%

• Unzip DBCacheContrib.zip in your twiki installation directory.
• Optionally, run DBCacheContrib_installer to automatically check and install other TWiki modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually.
• Alternatively, manually make sure the dependencies listed in the table below are resolved. %$DEPENDENCIES%

Contrib Info

Author:	TWiki:Main/CrawfordCurrie
Copyright ©:	This code is based on an original development of Motorola Inc. and is protected by the following copyrights: Copyright @copy 2002-2003 Motorola Inc. All Rights Reserved. Portions copyright © 2004. Crawford Currie http://www.c-dot.co.uk
License:	As required for the publication of all extensions to TWiki, this software is published under the terms of the GNU General Public License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details, published at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Version:	%$VERSION%
Change History:
9303	don't die on broken symlinks
8682	Item1580 one-char fix that makes the difference
8110	Item663 formatting and text fixes
7552	Item997 test update
7274	Item719 onReload() is not a static method.
7262	Item719 Michael Daum?'s patch (almost) to correct parameters to onReload
7260	Item727 made it clean the form name using normaliseWebTopicName
6353	Item380 do as the man says; make all $/ local
5720	Updated tests
5719	Fix for correct handling of parent relations
5229	Small improvement to the way it handles errors from Storable and Archive
5223	Documentation fixes, adding gifs.
5048	Cairo readiness
5036	Split from Shared Code?
5031	Moving to new name
5030	About to rename
5019	Improved topic data model, cleaned up tests
5008	Added extended access syntax, [?], [*] etc.
5006	Doc fixes
5005	Poddified documentation
5003	Initial version
8 Jul 2004	Initial version, split out from Form Query Plugin
Dependencies:	%$DEPENDENCIES%
Perl Version:	5.0
Plugin Home:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/DBCacheContrib
Feedback:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/DBCacheContribDev
Appraisal:	http://TWiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/DBCacheContribAppraisal