RSSBus - A Really Simple Service Bus

Loading Excel Records into a Relational Database

2008-07-02T10:38:23.972-04:00

This example uses Microsoft Access so you can try it without configuring a database server. You can readily adapt the script to work with Oracle, SQL Server, and other popular databases by changing the connector used. Please visit the RSSBus Connectors page on the web site to see the full range of database technologies and read/write operations supported by RSSBus.

This entry follows a preceeding blog entry called Inserting Records into a Relational Database.

If you want to run the demo yourself, first download and install a trial copy of RSSBus Desktop from the RSSBus Downloads page, and then download this database file and scripts.

Here is the Customers table from customers.mdb:

CustomerID	CompanyName	FirstName	LastName	PhoneNumber
1	Selecto Magic	Bob	Smith	800-123-4567
2	Woonsocket Widgets	Bob	Jones	800-321-4321
3	Spacely Sprokets	Bob	Rogers	727-888-1234

Here is the loaddata.xls Excel spreadsheet that we are going to load:

CompanyName	FirstName	LastName	PhoneNumber
Disney Studios	Roger	Rabbit	666-234-1234
Sam Adams Brewery	Sam	Adams	800-345-2345

Here is the RSBScript (loaddata.rsb) that loads records from the spreadsheet into the database. Note that it calls insert.rsb, presented in the prior blog entry:

<rsb:info title="loaddata" 

    description="Load
from Excel to sql db"></rsb:info>

<!-- Configure Excel
file used as input -->

<rsb:set attr="file"  value="loaddata.xls"/>

<rsb:set attr="sheet" value="sheet1"/>

<rsb:call op="excelGet">

    <!-- The
body of the call loops for each Excel record -->

    <!-- Strip
the excel: namespace tags off excelGet output -->

    <rsb:set attr="firstname"   value="[excel:firstname]" />

    <rsb:set attr="lastname" 
  value="[excel:lastname]" 
/>

    <rsb:set attr="companyname" value="[excel:companyname]" />

    <rsb:set attr="phonenumber" value="[excel:phonenumber]" />

  <!-- call
insert script once for each Excel record -->

    <rsb:call op="insert.rsb">

        <rsb:push title="[rss:title
| def('untitled item')]">

            [rss:title]

            [rss:description]

            <br />

        </rsb:push>

    </rsb:call>

</rsb:call>

To use this script, place the customers.mdb, loaddata.xml, loaddata.rsb, and insert.rsb files in the www/ directory of your RSSBus installation, and call it with this URL:

http://localhost:1110/loaddata.rsb

Here is the RSS feed that is returned, which confirms the insert:

<rss version="2.0">

   <channel>

    <description>Inserts
form or URL query data</description>

    <generator>/n
software RSSBus - http://www.rssbus.com</generator>
    <link>http://127.0.0.1:1110/loaddata.rsb</link>

    <title>Insert
to Customer database</title>

    <item>

      <access:affectedrows>1</access:affectedrows>

      <access:tablename>[Customers]</access:tablename>

      <description>

         Inserted in table: [customers]

         Roger Rabbit (Disney Studios)
        &lt;br
/&gt;

      </description>

      <title>Inserted
in table: [customers]</title>

      <guid isPermaLink="false">8g2+oFjVYVEudeJonC7KPrQOytA=</guid>

    </item>

    <item>

      <access:affectedrows>1</access:affectedrows>

      <access:tablename>[Customers]</access:tablename>

      <description>

         Inserted in table: [customers]

         Sam Adams (Sam Adams Brewery)
        &lt;br
/&gt;

      </description>

      <title>Inserted
in table: [customers]</title>

      <guid isPermaLink="false">8g2+oFjVYVEudeJonC7KPrQOytA=</guid>

    </item>

  </channel>

</rss>

You can verify that the insert worked by opening the database table in Access, or by invoking the select.rsb script included in the zip.

Note that you can modify the statement:
    <rsb:call op="insert.rsb">
to call a full URL, e.g.
    <rsb:call op="http://localhost:1110/insert.rsb"> or
    <rsb:call op="http://dbserver:1110/insert.rsb">

Then by installing RSSBus, insert.rsb and customers.mdb on dbserver, you can push the records from the Excel host to the database host via RSS over the network. You can even use a third host to call the loaddata.rsb URL, depending on your DNS and network setup. This distributed processing scenario should give you an idea of the power and flexibility of RSSBus.

Visit the online documentation of AccessOps for further details on sql operations, or read the RSSBus Feed Server Quick Start Guide to learn more about RSSbus.

Downloads: database.zip

Inserting Records into a Relational Database

2008-07-01T11:11:03.975-04:00

This entry follows a preceeding blog entry called Generating Feeds from Relational Database Tables.

If you want to run the demo yourself, first download and install a trial copy of RSSBus Desktop from the RSSBus Downloads page, and then download this database file and scripts.

Here is the Customers table from customers.mdb:

CustomerID	CompanyName	FirstName	LastName	PhoneNumber
1	Selecto Magic	Bob	Smith	800-123-4567
2	Woonsocket Widgets	Bob	Jones	800-321-4321
3	Spacely Sprokets	Bob	Rogers	727-888-1234

Here is the RSBScript (insert.rsb) that inserts a record into Customers:

<rsb:info title="Insert
to Customer database"

      description="Inserts
form or URL query data">

  <input name="firstname"   description="Customer
first name."/>

  <input name="lastname"    description="Customer
last name."/>

  <input name="companyname" description="Customer
company name."/>

  <input name="phonenumber" description="Customer
phone number."/>

</rsb:info>

<!-- Configure Access
database -->

<rsb:set attr="database" value="customers.mdb"/>

<rsb:set attr="table"    value="Customers"/>

<!-- Set rec: field
inut values for insert from script inputs -->

<rsb:set attr="rec:firstname"   value="[firstname]" />

<rsb:set attr="rec:lastname"    value="[lastname]" />
<rsb:set attr="rec:companyname" value="[companyname]" />
<rsb:set attr="rec:phonenumber" value="[phonenumber]" />

<rsb:call op="accessInsert" output="out">

  <rsb:push title="[rss:title
| def('untitled item')]">

    <!-- We'll
use the return feed to confirm the insert -->

    <!-- Push
populates the output feed, and sets its title -->

    <!-- Body
of push (below) becomes the description attribute -->

    [rec:firstname] [rec:lastname] ([rec:companyname])

  </rsb:push>

</rsb:call>

To use this script, place the customers.mdb and insert.rsb files in the www/ directory of your RSSBus installation, and call it with thisURL:

http://localhost:1110/insert.rsb?firstname=George&lastname=Jefferson&companyname=Jefferson%20Cleaners&phonenumber=234-234-1234

Here is the RSS feed that is returned, which confirms the insert:

<rss version="2.0">

  <channel>

    <description>Inserts
form or URL query data</description>

    <generator>/n
software RSSBus - http://www.rssbus.com</generator>

    <link>http://127.0.0.1:1110/insert.rsb</link>

    <title>Insert
to Customer database</title>

<item>
      <access:affectedrows>1</access:affectedrows>

      <access:tablename>[Customers]</access:tablename>

      <description>George
Jefferson (Jefferson Cleaners)</description>

      <title>Inserted
in table: [customers]</title>

      <guid isPermaLink="false">8g2+oFjVYVEudeJonC7KPrQOytA=</guid>

    </item>

  </channel>

</rss>

You can verify that the insert worked by opening the database table in Access, or by invoking the select.rsb script included in the zip.

You can also call the insert.rsb URL from a web form, or even from within another RSSScript that uses excelGet to read records from a spreadsheet. We will present this in a future posting called Loading Excel Records into a Relational Database.

Visit the online documentation of AccessOps for further details on sql operations, or read the RSSBus Feed Server Quick Start Guide to learn more about RSSbus.

Downloads: database.zip

Generating Feeds from Relational Database Tables

2008-06-25T15:01:57.521-04:00

If you want to run the demo yourself, first download and install a trial copy of RSSBus Desktop from the RSSBus Downloads page, and then download this database file and script.

Here is the Customers table from customers.mdb:

CustomerID	CompanyName	FirstName	LastName	PhoneNumber
1	Selecto Magic	Bob	Smith	800-123-4567
2	Woonsocket Widgets	Bob	Jones	800-321-4321
3	Spacely Sprokets	Bob	Rogers	727-888-1234

Here is the RSBScript (select.rsb) that selects from Customers:

<rsb:info title="Feed
of my Customer database"

      description="append
?name=smith to URL to select customers">

  <input name="name" description="Customer
last name to select."/>

</rsb:info>

<!-- Set record selector
for lastname if we got one as input -->

<rsb:notnull attr="name">

  <rsb:set attr="rec:lastname" value="[name]" />

</rsb:notnull>

<rsb:set attr="database" value="customers.mdb"/>

<rsb:set attr="table" value="Customers"/>

<rsb:call op="accessSelect" output="out">

  <!-- The body
of call statement loops for each record -->

  <rsb:push title="[access:firstname]
[access:lastname] ([access:companyname])">

    <!-- Push
sends record fields to RSS output as attributes -->

    <!-- Body
of push becomes optional description attribute -->

    id=[access:customerid], phone=[access:phonenumber]

  </rsb:push>

</rsb:call>

To use this script, place the customers.mdb and select.rsb files in the www/ directory of your RSSBus installation, and call it with these URLs:

http://localhost:1110/select.rsb
http://localhost:1110/select.rsb?name=smith

Here is the RSS feed for the first URL, which returns all customers:

<rss version="2.0">

  <channel>

    <description>append
?name=smith to URL to select</description>

    <generator>/n
software RSSBus - http://www.rssbus.com</generator>

    <link>http://127.0.0.1:1110/select.rsb</link>

    <title>Feed
of my Customer database</title>

    <item>

      <access:companyname>Selecto
Magic</access:companyname>

      <access:customerid>1</access:customerid>

      <access:firstname>Bob</access:firstname>

      <access:lastname>Smith</access:lastname>

      <access:phonenumber>800-123-4567</access:phonenumber>

      <description>id=1,
phone=800-123-4567</description>

      <title>Bob
Smith (Selecto Magic)</title>

      <guid isPermaLink="false">YAXH4HuKB1NKdNvv5SE10x6o6oU=</guid>

    </item>

    <item>

      <access:companyname>Woonsocket
Widgets</access:companyname>

      <access:customerid>2</access:customerid>

      <access:firstname>Bob</access:firstname>
      <access:lastname>Jones</access:lastname>
      . . .

      <title>Bob
Rogers (Spacely Sprokets)</title>

      <guid isPermaLink="false">/T4mn9va90YEe18LNiRO+YqqkSY=</guid>

    </item>

  </channel>

</rss>

You can follow the pattern shown to add more input selection parameters, or add the cols parameter to control the columns returned. See the online operation description for AccessOps for further details.

You can learn more about RSSBus by reading the RSSBus Feed Server Quick Start Guide.

Downloads: Database To Feed

RSSBus Desktop now includes RSSBus Console

2008-06-02T20:53:40.61-04:00

Internally at RSSBus, we have used RSBScripts and Templates for more than just publishing content over HTTP. We have used them to generate source code and other documents, we have used them to test RSSBus operations, and we have used them to automate tasks by scheduling scripts. Much of this is accomplished using the RSSBus Console.

RSSBus Console is a console executable that executes RSSBus operations. It makes it possible to execute scripts by double clicking them in the file manager; it helps RSBScripts to be used as simple utilities that can be scheduled using the Windows Scheduler (we will expand more on this in a later blog post); and it serves as an exploratory playground to discover connectors, understand their usage, invoke remote operations etc..

Based on feedback from several of you, we have decided to release a minor version upgrade to RSSBus Desktop which now includes the RSSBus Console. We believe that it will help you get more out of your RSSBus deployment.

The syntax to use RSSBus Console is as follows:
rssbus.exeoperation -[parameter name] [parameter value] ... -[parameter name] [parameter value]

A URL to an RSS/ATOM feed, name of an operation in a connector library, or a script are all operations in RSSBus. Thus any of them can be invoked using the syntax above. We list a few examples to get you started:

Get a remote RSS/ATOM feed. These are natural operations for RSSBus.
:: rssbus.exe http://news.google.com/?output=rss

Invoke an operation from the connector library with parameters.
:: rssbus.exe smtpSendEmail -from con@rssbus.com -to info@rssbus.com

Invoke a script with parameters. The extensions .rsb and .rst are mapped to rssbus.exe which allows scripts to be executed on the command prompt.
:: s3ListObjects.rsb -bucket mybucket

Get help for an operation in the connector library.
:: rssbus.exe smtpSendEmail --help

Get help for a remote operation. RSSBus treats remote operations on the web and those installed locally in exactly the same way.
:: rssbus.exe http://mysite.com/myservice.rsb --help

Create an HTML page from the results of an operation.
:: rssbus.exe s3ListObjects.rsb -bucket mybucket -@html > s3list.html

Please send your suggestions or questions to support@rssbus.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Announcing the RSSBus Feed Server Quick Start Guide

2008-05-23T15:52:36.981-04:00

We have updated the RSSBus Feed Server with a Quick Start Guide, a short hands-on tutorial, that will help you get started with RSSBus Feed Server, and introduce you to some more advanced features. Using the Guide you will:

Use the Admin Console to explore the connectors available in RSSBus,
Build an RSS feed of file folder contents using the FileOps connector,
Modify the feed to list files matching an input pattern,
Explore additional feed delivery formats, including Atom, Excel and HTTP, and
Forward the file listing feed via the SmtpOps connector.

We believe the Quick Start Guide will make it easier to explore data integration capabilities of the RSSBus Feed Server. As always, we would love to get your feedback.

RSSBus Nominated for 2008 Great Indian Developer Awards

2008-03-27T10:57:36.685-04:00

We are excited to announce that RSSBus Feed Server has been nominated for the 2008 Great Indian Developer Awards in the Web Development category. The RSSBus team is honored to be nominated for this award, and we are excited to be recognized across the globe for facilitating feed generation and enabling connected systems through simple services.

This nomination "highlights product excellence, research and innovation, corporate achievements, the strongest individual efforts, and the most compelling community efforts among the entire IT developer fraternity in India." For complete details visit the 2008 Great Indian Developer Summit website - http://www.developersummit.com/awards.html

Using Amazon SimpleDB with RSSBus

2008-03-10T12:35:05.221-04:00

Amazon recently released their new data service, known as SimpleDB, which allows one to store data in the cloud.

SimpleDB is a very simple database system which works on the basis of domain (a table), item (a row), and attributes (columns in a row). These are very closely related to an RSSBus feed which also contains a table (the feed itself), a row (the item), and columns (attributes).

The similarity of SimpleDB and RSSBus means two things: Feeds can be easily stored in a SimpleDB domain, and a SimpleDB domain can easily be represented as a feed.

We have created scripts illustrating both of the previously mentioned scenarios, and both of these scripts in their entirety are included as demos when you download the new SimpleDB connector.

Store a feed in a SimpleDB domain:

<!-- Retrieve the
feed -->

<rsb:call op="feedGet?feed=[feedurl]" out="myout">

  <!-- Enumerate
through each attribute in the feed -->

   <rsb:enum item="myout">

      <!-- Set
the attribute name to be stored in the SimpleDB Database -->

         <rsb:set attr="myin.attrs:[
_attr ]" value="[
_value ]" />

   </rsb:enum>

 

  <!-- Use the
GUID as the ItemName so it is always unique -->

   <rsb:set attr="myin.itemname" value="[
rss:guid ]" />

  <!-- Push
the item to SimpleDB -->

   <rsb:call op="simpledbPutItem" in="myin" />

</rsb:call>

The script to create a feed from a SimpleDB domain is even easier:

<!-- Setting fetchattributes
to True will automatically retrieve the attributes for each ItemName -->

<rsb:set attr="myin.fetchattributes"   value="True" />

<!-- Iterate through
all of the items in the domain -->

<rsb:call op="simpledbGetItems" in="myin" out="myout">

  <!-- Push
each Item as an RSS Item -->

  <rsb:push item="myout" />

</rsb:call>

The new SimpleDB connector makes interacting with SimpleDB incredibly easy. Aside from the two scripts mentioned above, the new connector also has the ability to perform any and all operations on a SimpleDB, such as creating a domain, deleting a domain, adding and deleting rows, and adding and deleting attributes.

RSSBus Wins Prestigious Jolt Productivity Award!

2008-03-07T16:19:51.025-05:00

We are proud to announce that RSSBus Feed Server has received the Jolt Productivity Award in the ‘Web Development Tools’ category at the 18th Annual Jolt Product Excellence Awards (www.joltawards.com).

Jolt Awards are presented annually to products, books, and websites that have "jolted" the industry over the past year, helping create faster, easier and more efficient software. The Jolt Product Awards recognize only the most innovative, trend-making, and ahead-of-the-curve software solutions. Winners are selected by an esteemed panel of judges consisting of industry insiders, columnists, and technology leaders.

For more information about the 2008 Jolt Awards - http://www.joltawards.com/press/030608.htm

Service Oriented Architecture with RSSBus

2008-01-31T20:44:25.574-05:00

RSSBus Feed Server is primarily an infrastructure to host simple web services. It allows one to quickly write scripts that take HTTP requests as input and produce simple feeds as a response. The extensive number of Connectors already available makes it possible to access data from many different sources. Today we will share our thoughts on some of the features that simplify the creation of service oriented architectures based on RSSBus.

Before we delve deeper into various options, let us remind ourselves of some guiding principles. We would like the solution to be simple, quick to implement, and benefit from the core promises of service oriented architectures. In doing so our solution should maintain:

loose coupling: making sure that a service does not depend on implementation details of another service,
reusability: consistent use of simple and extensible modules, patterns and formats, and
composability: ability to create new services by assembling composite services.

RSSBus Connectors

RSSBus Connectors are .NET assemblies (modules) that are dynamically discovered by the RSSBus Engine upon installation. They take advantage of the .NET Framework and are extremely flexible in their capabilities. Each Connector is composed of one or more operations for accessing data from a specific data source. Operations include only two functions, an Info function that describes the allowed inputs and outputs, and an Exec function that does the work. The RSSBus API also allows an operation to call another operation, facilitating composability. Partitioning data access and business logic into individual operations and formally defining their service contract can help you implement new Connectors quickly in a predictable, extensible way. RSSBus Feed Server ships with 70 Connectors to common Internet and Enterprise Data Sources, and you can easily create new Connectors using a simple API and .NET development tools (see the example in the White Paper).

RSBScript

The operations included in RSSBus Connectors are written to accept a variety of HTTP requests and host configuration inputs (for example the name of a SQL table to access or the username of a POP mailbox to read) and they can produce a rich variety of response output. RSSBus makes it easy to configure operation inputs and outputs by wrapping those calls inside RSBScript. Besides manipulating input and output, the script can be used to define user and role based security, manipulate response headers and data format, enhance performance with built-in caching, and more. RSBScript allows invocation of one or more local or remote operations, and also has a number of simple control logic features. RSBscript makes it easy for an administrator publishing the services to make the deployment decisions, while relying on developers to build core data access functionality within the Connectors.

RSBScript can also call other programming languages for implementation of more extensive business logic. RSSBus currently supports Python, Tcl, VBscript, Jscript and PowerShell, through an extensible API that allows easy creation of plug-ins for other languages.

RSSTools and Client Side Processing

Though RSS feeds can be consumed by RSS readers, email clients, and browsers; feeds generated with RSSBus also have data points that other programs can use. The format of data feeds generated by RSSBus is very simple, and most programming languages with basic XML libraries can easily work with them. To make this even easier we supply a set of tools for common development technologies. The ability to compute with feeds on the client side makes it possible to publish services that are suitable for a broader audience.

In addition to facilitating client side processing of feeds, RSSBus can alter the service response using RSSBus Feed Formatters. It is a simple matter to present the response of a service as HTML, CSV (comma-separated values), ATOM, JSON, etc, using existing feed formatters. These formatters can be used by supplying parameters like (@json, @html, @csv) in the HTTP request. Moreover, extensibility via the Feed Formatter API makes it possible to expand the existing set of response formats.

To summarize: what we have laid out in this post are some of the options RSSBus offers to move towards a more service oriented architecture. The benefits of SOA are well known, and we hope we can help reduce the costs and accelerating uptake of SOA. There will be more details in future posts.