[Tdwg-guid] Simple LSID resolver

[Roderic Page]

Dear Steve,

It's written in PHP, and is basically a cleaner version of the LSID  
test.  I developed it on my iBook running Apache and PHP 4.3.10, and  
deployed it on Fedora Core 4 with PHP 5. I've not tested it on Windows,  
the issue would be whether the Net:DNS module I use to do the  
resolution also works on Windows (who in their right mind uses Windows  
as a server ;-)

Yep, the error reporting is bad, but I could work on this. It tries to  
trap some errors and report them in XML, but I put it together when I  
should have been listening to the talks at GUID2, so it's a bit rough  
and ready.

Having a HTTP GET service sounds like a good idea, if it helps people  
play with this stuff. Maybe it could be as simple as a convention that  
if the "LSID" lacks a namespace and id (i.e., is just the authority)  
the service returns metadata about the authority. For data, perhaps the  
prefix "data" could be inserted before the LSID, rather like a lot of  
static URLs have the format of the data embedded in them, such as  
http://www.connotea.org/rss/recent/user/rdmpage?q=Formicidae (an RSS  
feed).

Not elegant, but simple.

Regards

Rod


On 14 Jun 2006, at 17:07, Steven Perry wrote:

> Hi Rod,
>
> This is pretty cool.  What language is it in?  What kind of server  
> does it require (application server, apache, etc.)?
> When I tried to put in an LSID that I knew didn't exist, I got an XML  
> parsing error.  No worries, since this is an early prototype, but I  
> was wondering if you're planning on trapping these kinds of errors and  
> returning an HTTP status code like 204 (NO_CONTENT), 404 (NOT_FOUND),  
> or 410 (GONE), or if you had something else in mind.
>
> I've also been thinking about an HTTP-GET based LSID resolution  
> gateway that might be exposed as a service.  It could support several  
> additional functions besides (the default) getMetadata():
>
> getAuthorityInfo :: given an LSID, return information (in RDF) about  
> the authority extracted from the authority metadata
> getData:: might work a bit differently from the spec in that it always  
> sends through HTTP and it tries to set the correct mime type.
>
> However getMetadata is the critical function and these others may not,  
> upon more reflection, make much sense.
>
> Given that we want to be able to integrate with existing semantic web  
> apps and tools that can't currently understand the LSID resolution  
> process, I think we'll come to depend upon these kinds of services.   
> They also provide convenience to developers who are working with  
> languages that don't yet have a resolution client API.  It might be  
> nice to work out how such a service ought to behave and present it to  
> TAG.
>
> -Steve
>
>
> Roderic Page wrote:
>> It was good to see everybody who made it to sunny Edinburgh over the   
>> weekend.
>>
>> I've put together a very simple LSID resolver that returns RDF  
>> metadata  for a LSID. I wanted something very simple, so all you do  
>> is stick your  LSID on the end of http://lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk/,  
>> e.g.
>>
>> http://lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk/urn:lsid:ubio.org:namebank:2735664
>>
>> http://lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk/urn:lsid:lsid.zoology.gla.ac.uk:  
>> predicate:isBasionymOf
>>
>> It's far from bullet proof, and not as pretty as other resolvers.   
>> However, it means you see the RDF straight away, and if you wanted to  
>>  aggregate the RDF for a LSID you could use this to do the resolution  
>>  for you.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Rod
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> -- ----------------------------------------
>> Professor Roderic D. M. Page
>> Editor, Systematic Biology
>> DEEB, IBLS
>> Graham Kerr Building
>> University of Glasgow
>> Glasgow G12 8QP
>> United Kingdom
>>
>> Phone:    +44 141 330 4778
>> Fax:      +44 141 330 2792
>> email:    r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
>> web:      http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
>> reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html
>>
>> Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic
>> Biologists Website:  http://systematicbiology.org
>> Search for taxon names: http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/
>> Find out what we know about a species: http://ispecies.org
>> Rod's rants on phyloinformatics: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
----------------------------------------
Professor Roderic D. M. Page
Editor, Systematic Biology
DEEB, IBLS
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QP
United Kingdom

Phone:    +44 141 330 4778
Fax:      +44 141 330 2792
email:    r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
web:      http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
iChat:    aim://rodpage1962
reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html

Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic
Biologists Website:  http://systematicbiology.org
Search for taxon names: http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/
Find out what we know about a species: http://ispecies.org
Rod's rants on phyloinformatics: http://iphylo.blogspot.com