Administration¶
pycsw administration is handled by the pycsw-admin.py
utility. pycsw-admin.py
is installed as part of the pycsw install process and should be available in your
PATH.
Note
Run pycsw-admin.py -h
to see all administration operations and parameters
Metadata Repository Setup¶
pycsw supports the following databases:
- SQLite3
- PostgreSQL
- PostgreSQL with PostGIS enabled
- MySQL
Note
The easiest and fastest way to deploy pycsw is to use SQLite3 as the backend.
Note
PostgreSQL support includes support for PostGIS functions if enabled
Note
If PostGIS (1.x or 2.x) is activated before setting up the pycsw/PostgreSQL database, then native PostGIS geometries will be enabled.
To expose your geospatial metadata via pycsw, perform the following actions:
- setup the database
- import metadata
- publish the repository
Supported Information Models¶
By default, pycsw supports the csw:Record
information model.
Note
See Profile Plugins for information on enabling profiles
Setting up the Database¶
$ pycsw-admin.py -c setup_db -f default.cfg
This will create the necessary tables and values for the repository.
The database created is an OGC SFSQL compliant database, and can be used with any implementing software. For example, to use with OGR:
$ ogrinfo /path/to/records.db
INFO: Open of 'records.db'
using driver 'SQLite' successful.
1: records (Polygon)
$ ogrinfo -al /path/to/records.db
# lots of output
Note
If PostGIS is detected, the pycsw-admin.py script does not create the SFSQL tables as they are already in the database.
Loading Records¶
$ pycsw-admin.py -c load_records -f default.cfg -p /path/to/records
This will import all *.xml
records from /path/to/records
into the database specified in default.cfg
(repository.database
). Passing -r
to the script will process /path/to/records
recursively. Passing -y
to the script will force overwrite existing metadata with the same identifier. Note that -p
accepts either a directory path or single file.
Note
Records can also be imported using CSW-T (see Transactions).
Exporting the Repository¶
$ pycsw-admin.py -c export_records -f default.cfg -p /path/to/output_dir
This will write each record in the database specified in default.cfg
(repository.database
) to an XML document on disk, in directory /path/to/output_dir
.
Optimizing the Database¶
$ pycsw-admin.py -c optimize_db -f default.cfg
Note
This feature is relevant only for PostgreSQL and MySQL
Deleting Records from the Repository¶
$ pycsw-admin.py -c delete_records -f default.cfg
This will empty the repository of all records.
Database Specific Notes¶
PostgreSQL¶
- if PostGIS is not enabled, pycsw makes uses of PL/Python functions. To enable PostgreSQL support, the database user must be able to create functions within the database. In case of recent PostgreSQL versions (9.x), the PL/Python extension must be enabled prior to pycsw setup
- PostgreSQL Full Text Search is supported for
csw:AnyText
based queries. pycsw creates a tsvector column based on the text from anytext column. Then pycsw creates a GIN index against the anytext_tsvector column. This is created automatically inpycsw.admin.setup_db
. Any query against csw:AnyText or apiso:AnyText will process using PostgreSQL FTS handling
PostGIS¶
- pycsw makes use of PostGIS spatial functions and native geometry data type.
- It is advised to install the PostGIS extension before setting up the pycsw database
- If PostGIS is detected, the pycsw-admin.py script will create both a native geometry column and a WKT column, as well as a trigger to keep both synchronized.
- In case PostGIS gets disabled, pycsw will continue to work with the WKT column
- In case of migration from plain PostgreSQL database to PostGIS, the spatial functions of PostGIS will be used automatically
- When migrating from plain PostgreSQL database to PostGIS, in order to enable native geometry support, a “GEOMETRY” column named “wkb_geometry” needs to be created manually (along with the update trigger in
pycsw.admin.setup_db
). Also the native geometries must be filled manually from the WKT field. Next versions of pycsw will automate this process
Mapping to an Existing Repository¶
pycsw supports publishing metadata from an existing repository. To enable this functionality, the default database mappings must be modified to represent the existing database columns mapping to the abstract core model (the default mappings are in pycsw/config.py:MD_CORE_MODEL
).
To override the default settings:
- define a custom database mapping based on
etc/mappings.py
- in
default.cfg
, setrepository.mappings
to the location of the mappings.py file:
[repository]
...
mappings=path/to/mappings.py
See the GeoNode Configuration and Open Data Catalog Configuration for further examples.
Existing Repository Requirements¶
pycsw requires certain repository attributes and semantics to exist in any repository to operate as follows:
pycsw:Identifier
: unique identifierpycsw:Typename
: typename for the metadata; typically the value of the root element tag (e.g.csw:Record
,gmd:MD_Metadata
)pycsw:Schema
: schema for the metadata; typically the target namespace (e.g.http://www.opengis.net/cat/csw/2.0.2
,http://www.isotc211.org/2005/gmd
)pycsw:InsertDate
: date of insertionpycsw:XML
: full XML representationpycsw:AnyText
: bag of XML element text values, used for full text search. Realized with the following design pattern:- capture all XML element and attribute values
- store in repository
pycsw:BoundingBox
: string of WKT or EWKT geometry
The following repository semantics exist if the attributes are specified:
pycsw:Keywords
: comma delimited list of keywordspycsw:Links
: structure of links in the format “name,description,protocol,url[^,,,[^,,,]]”
Values of mappings can be derived from the following mechanisms:
- text fields
- Python datetime.datetime or datetime.date objects
- Python functions
Further information is provided in pycsw/config.py:MD_CORE_MODEL
.