HTTP::OAI::Repository - Documentation for building an OAI compliant repository using OAI-PERL

Using the OAI-PERL library in a repository context requires the user to build the OAI responses to be sent to OAI harvesters.

	use HTTP::OAI::Harvester;
	use HTTP::OAI::Metadata::OAI_DC;
	use XML::SAX::Writer;
	use XML::LibXML;

	# (all of these options _must_ be supplied to comply with the OAI protocol)
	# (protocolVersion and responseDate both have sensible defaults)
	my $r = new HTTP::OAI::Identify(
		baseURL=>'http://yourhost/cgi/oai',
		adminEmail=>'youremail@yourhost',
		repositoryName=>'agoodname',
		requestURL=>self_url()
	);

	# Include a description (an XML::LibXML Dom object)
	$r->description(new HTTP::OAI::Metadata(dom=>$dom));

	my $r = HTTP::OAI::Record->new(
		header=>HTTP::OAI::Header->new(
			identifier=>'oai:myrepo:10',
			datestamp=>'2004-10-01'
			),
		metadata=>HTTP::OAI::Metadata::OAI_DC->new(
			dc=>{title=>['Hello, World!'],description=>['My Record']}
			)
	);
	$r->about(HTTP::OAI::Metadata->new(dom=>$dom));

	my $writer = XML::SAX::Writer->new();
	$r->set_handler($writer);
	$r->generate;

The validation scripts included in this module provide the repository admin with a number of tools for helping with being OAI compliant, however they can not be exhaustive in themselves.

$r = HTTP::OAI::Repository::validate_request(%paramlist)

$r = HTTP::OAI::Repository::validate_request_2_0(%paramlist)

These functions, exported by the Repository module, validate an OAI request against the protocol requirements. Returns an HTTP::Response object, with the code set to 200 if the request is well-formed, or an error code and the message set.

e.g:

	my $r = validate_request(%paramlist);

	print header(-status=>$r->code.' '.$r->message),
		$r->error_as_HTML;

Note that validate_request attempts to be as strict to the Protocol as possible.

$b = HTTP::OAI::Repository::validate_date($date)

$b = HTTP::OAI::Repository::validate_metadataPrefix($mdp)

$b = HTTP::OAI::Repository::validate_responseDate($date)

$b = HTTP::OAI::Repository::validate_setSpec($set)

These functions, exported by the Repository module, validate the given type of OAI data. Returns true if the given value is sane, false otherwise.

See the bin/gateway.pl for an example implementation (it's actually for creating a static repository gateway, but you get the idea!).