http://ofbiz.116.s1.nabble.com/XSD-schema-conversion-anyone-tp170452p170461.html
> Except for there not currently being a ProductRole
> entity, why wouldn't the publisher be handled as a
> party?
>
>
>
> --- David E Jones <
[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> That's a little bit different then...
>>
>> What you probably need/want is some code to take in
>> the incoming ONIX
>> files and map the information to existing OFBiz
>> entities rather than
>> creating new ones.
>>
>> As you're doing the mapping you'll get into the
>> issue you brought up
>> here about what should go where. Different things
>> will most likely be
>> best handled in different ways. For example, the
>> "publisher" would be
>> handled well by a ProductFeature, but the title and
>> ISBN would not as
>> they are unique to each book. Those could be put
>> into ProductContent
>> records (with new ProductContentTypes) and handled
>> with existing
>> code, or perhaps even just added as fields to the
>> Product entity, and
>> then only small changes would be needed in the
>> ProductSearch code (or
>> no changes... it's been a while since I wrote it so
>> I don't remember
>> exactly).
>>
>> In any case, I think you'll find pretty flexible and
>> efficient
>> performing search capabilities in the ProductSearch
>> stuff. Make sure
>> you're looking at a moderately recent version of
>> OFBiz (ie not one of
>> the ancient releases, like 3.0.0 or something).
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> On Aug 8, 2006, at 12:43 AM, Iain Fogg wrote:
>>
>>> David,
>>>
>>> Basically I'm looking to augment the standard
>> OFBiz functionality
>>> with functionality specifically required in the
>> book selling
>>> business. As an absolute minimum, I need to be
>> able to periodically
>>> refresh the OFBiz product and supplier data with a
>> subset of the
>>> ONIX data (new titles, price changes, supplier
>> info, etc). I also
>>> want to look at ways of providing a richer set of
>> search options
>>> specific to the book trade (eg, title, publisher,
>> ISBN, etc), and
>>> to have all of the ONIX data available for
>> back-office (and
>>> sometimes front-of-house) enquiries.
>>>
>>> I've seen it suggested that one of the ways to
>> provide richer
>>> content in the OFBiz Product database is to use
>> the Feature
>>> mechanism. I've played around with this a little
>> bit, and it might
>>> work, but I'd need to be convinced about
>> performance and
>>> maintainability. The ONIX dataset can contain
>> hundreds of thousands
>>> of records, and modelling these with the OFBiz
>> Feature feature
>>> seems a bit clumsy. I'm not sure what the impact
>> would be on search
>>> queries.
>>>
>>> I'm still exploring my requirements, and at this
>> stage about the
>>> only thing I know for sure is that I need to synch
>> ONIX data with
>>> OFBiz to ensure OFBiz is using up-to-date info.
>> Probably the other
>>> thing I know for sure is that I need richer search
>> options, and
>>> response needs to be reasonable.
>>>
>>> At the end of the day, one of the things I need to
>> work out is how
>>> to "integrate" (and I use the term loosely), ONIX
>> and OFBiz.
>>>
>>> Cheers, Iain
>>>
>>>
>>> David E. Jones wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Is the intent to map it to the OFBiz data model
>> or services? I'm
>>>> guessing that's not the case if you're trying to
>> create entities
>>>> to represent it.
>>>>
>>>> If you're trying to create a data model for an
>> XML Schema and not
>>>> mapping it to an existing data model, then you'll
>> have to design
>>>> a data model to match it. XML is an hierarchical
>> data structure
>>>> which is very different from a relational
>> (table-based) one. Some
>>>> design will have to be done to decide how to
>> structure things
>>>> because there are no natural equivalencies.
>> There are, of course,
>>>> some common patterns for dealing with
>> hierarchical and other
>>>> structures in SQL, but doing an effective
>> mapping requires more
>>>> of an understanding of the data model so that
>> the same data can
>>>> be captured in both places and this is very
>> difficult to
>>>> automate. You might find some commercial tools
>> that give you a
>>>> good first pass though... ie to go from XSD to
>> SQL DDL.
>>>>
>>>> -David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Aug 7, 2006, at 6:51 PM, Iain Fogg wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Chris,
>>>>>
>>>>> Good question, and this probably exposes my
>> ignorance of XST.
>>>>> Maybe it's not the right technology. Maybe I
>> need to find a tool
>>>>> that can translate from XSD -> SQL. Then it
>> would be
>>>>> straightforward to map the relational table
>> defs to the OFBiz
>>>>> entity def. My small brain can't get round the
>> mapping of the
>>>>> hierarchical XML Schema to a relational one -
>> at least not given
>>>>> it's size. Maybe when I was younger :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> In case anyone is interested, the schema I want
>> to map is the
>>>>> ONIX schema (used in the book trade).
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers, Iain
>>>>>
>>>>> Chris Howe wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you need
>> to know
>>>>>> what the source elements are in order to make
>> an XST
>>>>>> to entity def? Absent knowing the structure of
>> your
>>>>>> source it wouldn't matter what someone else's
>> XST
>>>>>> looks like, it wouldn't work with yours.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --- Iain Fogg <
[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's my question...has anyone already buit
>> an XST
>>>>>>> to do the conversion to OFBiz Entity defs?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> BJ Freeman wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> the XSD defines the layout.
>>>>>>>> the XML is where the Entities definitions
>> are.
>>>>>>>> you can try using an XST file to convert.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Iain Fogg sent the following on 8/7/2006 7:53
>> AM:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I have a slightly complicated XML Schema
>> (.xsd)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> that I would like to
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> import into OFBiz.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Has anyone written a tool to convert XML
>> schemas
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> into OFBiz entity
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> definitions?
>>
> === message truncated ===
>