repoze.filecat 0.1

Filecat
=======

This is a WSGI application written for the ``repoze.bfg`` framework
which catalogs files in a Xapian database and provides a RESTful
interface to dispatch jobs and perform queries.

The application is configured with a ``path`` parameter which points
to a pool of files (a directory structure) and a ``host`` parameter
which provides a URL at which a webserver is configured to serve the
directory.

Components
----------

The main server thread starts up a Xapian connection and listens for
requests:

All queries are performed using the following HTTP API::

method path description
----------------------------------------------------------
POST /purge Clear index
POST /add Add file to index

@path Relative filename

POST /update Reindex file

@path Relative filename

POST /remove Remove file from index

@path Relative filename

GET /query Perform query

Parameters are passed as-is
to the Xapian query engine.


Query results
-------------

Queries return JSON structures with tuples of dicts on the following
form:

@url The URL where this file can be downloaded
@mimetype MIME-type of the file
@metadata Dict-like structure with mimetype-specific metadata*

*) The Hachoir Python package is used to provide this metadata for
image and video files.


Credits
-------

Malthe Borch and Stefan Eletzhofer



CHANGELOG
=========

Head
~~~~~

0.1 - (2008-10-03)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

- Remove print statements [seletz]

- Added tests for directory watch/observer. Fixed a bug where the observer would
emit absolute paths causing xapian to index absolute paths [seletz]

- Hook watcher in. The configured ``static`` directory is now watched. Changes
are now added to the Xapian queue [seletz]

- Created a directory observer thing which will allow us later to atomatically
wahtch a directory and issue Xapian operations [seletz]

- Hooked in ``modify`` and ``remove`` views. [seletz]

- Changed query parser -- it now just uses the passed-in query string. Also
added ability to limit/batch query results. [seletz]

- Configured Xapian indexer. This has to be done separately from the BFG
components, because the Xapian indexer runs in its own thread and thus uses
the global component registry. [seletz]

- Hooked up ``add`` view. [seletz]

- Implemented ``query`` view. [seletz]

- Fixed ``routes``setup wrt. permissions. [seletz]

- Changed svn layout [seletz]

- Added buildout [selez]