PyMetacat 
Python client library to work with Metacat XML Databases.
Author: Matthew Perry
Date: 12/06/2006

Introduction
-------------
Metacat is a flexible XML database. It can store, search and rerieve XML documents of any schema and it used primarily for storing metadata documents. This library provides a python interface to any Metacat server allowing you to add, insert, update, delete and query documents.


Installation
------------

To install pymetcat, copy the metacat.py file into your python site-packages directory (eg. /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages) or anywhere in $PYTHONPATH  including the current working directory.


Examples
------------

Along with transferEml.py (a full working example of pymetacat usage), here are some basic usage examples:



# Load the metacat library
import metacat

# Initialize a metacat client connection
mc = metacat.MetacatClient('www.server.net','/context/metacat')

# Inspect the methods available through the MetacatClient object
dir(mc)

# Print the url
print mc.getMetacatUrl()

# Login
response = mc.login('uid=user,o=ORG,dc=ecoinformatics,dc=org','PassW0Rd!')
print "login : ", response

# Read the eml 
docid = 'org.99.4.1'
eml = mc.read(docid)
print eml

# Insert the read document as a new copy w/ new docid
newdocid = 'anotherorg.905'
response = mc.insert(newdocid + ".1",eml)
print response

# Make some change to the xml text and update it
eml.replace("Serengeti", "Some other")
response = mc.update(newdocid + ".2",eml)
print response

# Delete the document
response = mc.delete(newdocid + ".2")
print "DELETE"
print response


pathquery = """
   <pathquery version="1.0">
      <meta_file_id>unspecified</meta_file_id>
      <querytitle>unspecified</querytitle>
      <returnfield>dataset/title</returnfield>
      <returndoctype></returndoctype>
      <querygroup operator="UNION">
        <queryterm casesensitive="false" searchmode="contains">
          <value>%</value>
        </queryterm>
        <queryterm casesensitive="false" searchmode="contains">
          <value>Africa</value>
          <pathexpr>keyword</pathexpr>
        </queryterm>
      </querygroup>
    </pathquery> 
"""
response = mc.squery(pathquery)
print response

response = mc.logout()
print "logout : ", response
