MSI Information using XML, XSLT,

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MSI Information using XML, XSLT, CVS

• Kakapo Meeting
• August 28, 2003

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Example XML database file

• http//web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/msilist.xml
• Stores all the info about managed MSIs.
• Contents
• names of people, teams, groups, with
  URLs and contact info
• info about clusters
• info about our managed MSIs

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contents

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An entry

• Adobe
• Acrobat Reader
• 6.0
• General Productivity
• file//win.mit.edu/dfs/msi/acst/adobe_r
  eader_60/adobe_reader_mit_60.msi
• http//www.adobe.com/support/product
  s/acrreader.html

• Extracted MSI after setup process from
  vendor installer using InstallShield AdminStudio.
  Provided MSI and MST did not work in our
  environment.
• free version
• Chad Dupuis
• Academic Computing
• 2003-
• 07-
• 10

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Example XSL template file

• XSL template files
• convert the database into desired output style
• are themselves in XML format
• Our example
• http//web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/msisuppor
  t.xsl
• Desired output style
• tree of HTML files
• patterned after Academic Computing msi
  pagehttp//web.mit.edu/acs/windows/msisupport.htm
  l
• Used HTML Tidy to turn the HTML into viable XML

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Msisupport.xsl contents

• (output file is html)
• (start at top of xml
  file)
• ,, (create main page)
• (select s)
• (group, sort)
• (display info)
• 
  (make output documents for each msi)
• ,, (create new html tree)
• 
  (save to separate file)

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Invoking XSLT processor

• http//web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/generate-h
  tml.cmd
• Runs msxsl ..\msilist.xml msisupport.xsl -o
  msisupport.html
• In English
• Use the MSXSL processor
• Use msilist.xml as the input file
• Use msisupport.xsl as the template file
• Create msisupport.html as the main output file

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Results

• Creates
• http//web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/msisuppor
  t.html
• and the http//web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/ms
  iinfo/ directory, containing
• adobe_acrobat_reader_50_idafg0o_MSI_README.html
• adobe_acrobat_reader_60_idand0o_MSI_README.html
• esri_arcinfo_workstation_83_idame0o_MSI_README.htm
  l
• microsoft_visio_2002_idaah0o_MSI_README.html

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Using CVS

• Created/edited files on some computer
• Checked into CVS
• msilist module in pismere-test repository on
  cvs.mit.edu server
• Deployed via pismere locker in AFS
• Directory hierarchy directly checked out from
  same module
• http//web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/CVS
• Redeploying after changes
• A simple cvs update in pismere locker

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Pros and Cons XML

• PROs
• Free
• Extremely general, so any structure for database
  can be achieved
• Understood by a large and increasing number of
  browsers/applications
• Can use simple text editor to change, or more
  xml-aware applications.
• CONs
• Generality means we make the rules and we have
  to enforce them
• Isnt quite widespread enough to be easily
  accessible to laypeople

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Pros and Cons XSLT

• PROs
• Free
• General enough to get just about any
  look-and-feel
• Is also an XML document, so same tools can be
  used to edit
• CONs
• Difficult to learn, tedious to write
• But easy enough to parrot and include
  hopefully the tough parts only need to be done
  once
• Still at version 1.0, so not perfected yet
• Multiple output documents not natively
  supported,so it forces a choice of a particular
  processor toimplement (my choice MSXSL)

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Pros and Cons CVS

• PROs
• Free
• Deployment via AFS
• Revision control
• Some file conflict resolution
• Recovering older versions
• CONs
• Usually a command-line client
• Learning curve
• Some gotchas
• filename capitalization,
• binary/text tags, etc