Quick SuperCat update


What its web API can do today:

  • REST retrieval of bibliographic records as MARCXML, MODS, atom entry, rss item, oai_dc, srw_dc and rdf_dc, as well as OPAC redirection
  • unAPI retrieval in formats above
  • OpenSearch 1.0 and 1.1, and OSD generation (yes, generation — replace the dash in those URLs with title, author, subject or series to get OSDs for searches other than “keyword”); response formats are RSS 2.0, atom, MARCXML (for the completely insane), MODS and, coming soon, HTML using atom->xhtml client side XSLT, though replacing the format with a “-“, as the OSD does, returns results in RSS for version 1.0 and atom for version 1.1. There is support for limiting searches to specific libraries or local library systems within PINES, though I haven’t yet decided on the best way to expose that functionality in the OSDs — probably an extension namespace would be best.
  • Patron book bag publishing in formats above, as well as an OPAC redirect (coming soon: standalone HTML via the same atom->xhtml XSLT as the OpenSearch feeds, in addition to OPAC redirect)
  • oISBN

All these web services are based on the relatively simple and thin OpenSRF application, open-ils.supercat, which is a wrapper to simplify part of the open-ils.storage API, and a couple calls to the open-ils.search open-ils.actor applications. All the code was built in the little time I could steal between preparing for 10 full day meetings over the past 5 weeks, and whatever time my loving, and very forgiving, wife has allowed me on the weekends when I should have been doing yard work.

Next up

  • RESTful holdings retrieval
  • RESTful create and update interface for bib records
  • RESTful notes interface (CRUD) for bib records and holdings
  • Atom Publishing Protocol create and update interface for bib records
  • More output formats for metarecords
  • RESTful update/remapping interface for metarecords
  • Once the unAPI paste spec starts to appear, an unAPI paste interface

… and lots more, I’m sure.