By Jamie Ho

University of Toronto

July 16, 1999

Purpose

• A visual tool to support the generation, editing, testing, update and registration of XIB description of websites and databases.

Installation

• To compile the application, type "javac DescWizard.java".
• To run the program, type "run" while in the directory "xib/descBuilder/".

Generation An XIB Description

Options

    All XIB descriptions have a service name, DTD path, descrtiption of the service and output name.  To enter these options for a XIB description, click on edit->otpions and enter the data into the following panel:

Input

    Information sources usually allow a limited number of query forms to be submitted.  The input description defines the set of queries acceptable to a particular source.  it consists of a set of variables that a user can associate values with, and their corresponding range specification.

    Here is an example of an input for an XIB description:

<INPUT>
    <elementType id="query"> <string/> </elementType>
    <elementType id="mode">
        <attribute name="searchMode" atttype="ENUMERATION"
            values="books music classical video toys electronics blended" />
    </elementType>
</INPUT>

Adding An Input Element

        To add an input element, click on the root of the input elements tree and click on the add element or attribute button.  After entering the name of the element, there will be a dialogue box asking if the element contains a type.  If it does, then click yes and specify the name of the type and the amount of times that it occurs.

Adding An Input Attribute

        To add an attribute to input element, click on the input element on the elements tree and then click on the add element or attribute button.  Enter the name of the attribute and its possible values. 

Output

    The output consists of a set of variables that we can associate query results with, and their corresponding range specification.

Adding An Output ID

    To add an output ID, click on the root of the output elements tree and click on the add ID or attribute button. 

Adding An Output Type

    To add an output type, click on the ID of the output element that you want to add the type to and then click on the Add ID or Type button.

Input Binding

    In a XIB website description, an input binding provides necessary information for the dynamic construction of an URL.  In a XIB database description, an input binding provides information for the queries to be performed on the database.  Input bindings have the same format for websites and databases.

    Here is an example of an input binding for a website description:

<INPUTBINDING>
    <BASE method="POST" page="Elem(P, &quot;form&quot;)[0]">
        "http://www.amazon.com" </BASE>
        <BINDING variable="query" mapsTo="keyword-query" />
        <BINDING variable="mode" mapsTo="mode"/>
</INPUTBINDING>

    For website descriptions, the description builder automatically provides the names of the binding variables in the input binding based on the information from the input.  To complete the input binding, enter method, page, base and mappings on the following panel:

    For database description, the user must enter the base, driver, user, password and query into the following panel:

Output Binding

    Database descriptions do not have output bindings.  Website descriptions have output bindings which consist of WebL scripts.  These scripts define the location of the data inside a HTML document.  They should be written in the following panel:

    The Test Script button allows you to test the script being written.