1. MSI Information using XML, XSLT, & CVS Kakapo Meeting August 28, 2003

2. Example XML database file: http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/ msilist.xml 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

3. contents:

4. An entry Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 General Productivity file://win.mit.edu/dfs/msi/a cst/adobe_reader_60/adobe _reader_mit_60.msi file://win.mit.edu/dfs/msi/a cst/adobe_reader_60/adobe _reader_mit_60.msi http://www.adobe.com/sup port/products/acrreader.htm l http://www.adobe.com/sup port/products/acrreader.htm l 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

5. 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/ msisupport.xsl http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/ msisupport.xsl Desired output style: tree of HTML files patterned after Academic Computing msi page http://web.mit.edu/acs/windows/msisupport.html http://web.mit.edu/acs/windows/msisupport.html Used HTML Tidy to turn the HTML into viable XMLHTML Tidy

6. 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)

7. Invoking XSLT processor http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/ generate-html.cmd http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/ generate-html.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

8. Results Creates http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/ msisupport.html http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/ msisupport.html and the http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/msiinfo/ directory, containing: http://web.mit.edu/pismere/msilist/acst/msiinfo/ adobe_acrobat_reader_50_idafg0o_MSI_README.html adobe_acrobat_reader_60_idand0o_MSI_README.html esri_arcinfo_workstation_83_idame0o_MSI_README.html microsoft_visio_2002_idaah0o_MSI_README.html

9. 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

10. 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 Isn’t quite widespread enough to be easily accessible to laypeople

11. 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 to implement (my choice: MSXSL)

12. 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…