WWWISIS: A World Wide Web server for CDS/ISIS databases

       CDS/ISIS (Computerized Documentation System, Integrated Sets of Information Systems) software is the standard database software that has been adopted by members of Asia-Pacific POPIN for the preparation of bibliographic databases and directories - databases containing textual information rather than numeric information.

Mr Maung Aung Myint, a consultant for the ESCAP Population and Rural and Urban Development Division, instructs participants in an information technology-related training workshop on how to mount CDS/ISIS databases on the Web.

       Some have been under the impression that different software would have to be used for managing such material; this is not the case.

       Having created many databases using this software, it would be useful to be able to mount the databases on the Web without converting them into different formats. This article brings out many interesting points about the further development of the CDS/ISIS software package for use on the Web that should prove useful to members of the Network as they attempt to make their databases and directories available for global access. It is based on the training module prepared by Mr Maung Aung Myint, who trained participants on the subject in an Asia-Pacific POPIN workshop held in October 1999 at Beijing.

Background

       CDS/ISIS was first developed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the early 1970s for IBM mainframe computers. Later UNESCO continued to develop the software for its VAX minicomputer using the VMS operating system. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) also developed another version of CDS/ISIS software for Hewlett Packard minicomputers using the Unix operating system.

       In the early 1980s, with the growing popularity of microcomputers, UNESCO developed a version of CDS/ISIS software for IBM personal computers (PCs) using the DOS operating system. Later, UNESCO developed another version of CDS/ISIS for PCs using the Unix (AT&T system V) operating system. CDS/ISIS running under the Microsoft Windows operating system is the latest version of CDS/ISIS to have been developed by UNESCO. All versions of CDS/ISIS software are functionally identical.

Popularity

       CDS/ISIS is one of the most popular database management software packages ever developed. It is the database software of choice for many developing and even some developed countries because:

• It is available free of charge
• It is very powerful software in terms of functions, retrieval speed and economical data storage on disk, and
• It supports the ISO 2709 information exchange format.

       However, all the versions of the CDS/ISIS software mentioned above were developed well before the World Wide Web technology was made easily and widely accessible; the bad news is that none of those versions can be used to present databases with a Web interface.

       During the early 1990s, with the growing popularity of the Web, several ISIS developers tried to enhance CDS/ISIS with a Web interface. Basically, they used three approaches to make CDS/ISIS usable on the Web:

1. Development of CGI (common gateway interface) programs for Web servers to drive standard CDS/ISIS programs (for Unix). Example: websis
2. Development of a CDS/ISIS server by combining CGI and CDS/ISIS features (for Unix and Windows NT). Example: wwwisis or wwwi32.exe downloadable from ftp://brmg.bireme.br/wwwisis/pc/ Another name for wwwi32.exe is BIREME, named after the organization where it was developed.
3. Development of CDS/ISIS server for WAIS (Z39.5) and interface with the Web through a Web-enhanced WAIS client (for Unix). Example: ISIS-FreeWAIS downloadable from http://www.dba.it/prods/english.htm

Configuring the Internet or Intranet environment for WWWISIS

       BIREME ISIS (wwwi32.exe), the executable module of WWWISIS, was developed in Brazil by BIREME/PAHO/WHO (Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health, formerly called Biblioteca Regional de Medicina/Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization). It is very useful and popular because it supports the Microsoft Windows NT operating system. With BIREME ISIS it is possible to create a 100 per cent Web-based CDS/ISIS system, complete with Web-based data entry, editing, indexing and retrieval features, or create and update databases “on the fly” from user inputs over the Web.

Getting started

       For testing and development purposes, we shall use a Personal Web Server environment, which has the same basic functions of NT IIS (Microsoft Internet Information Server), but can run on one's computer. Mounting CDS/ISIS databases on the Internet involves three main installation and configuration works:

Installing Personal Web Server software

       Because Personal Web Server has basically identical functions as Windows NT where Internet Web pages are assumed to be mounted, it can be used as a platform for developing and testing your Web site. Before you mount your Web site on the Web server, you can create a trial Web site in your office or home (using a PC), using Personal Web Server to test it.

       You can get Personal Web Server software free from the Microsoft Web site or other sites, then install it on your computer. After installation, a directory called “Inetpub” will be created in the C-drive root-directory. Inside it, two subdirectories, “wwwroot” and “scripts”, will be created; these can be used for storing your homepage processing and script files. These are the default directories for Microsoft Internet Information Server.

Typical Web page

       Before proceeding any further, it would be wise to examine the diagram (left), which shows the basic components of a Web page. This will help you to get a general idea of how each script creates each component of the Web page.

1. The Header contains material such as logo, title of the page and the like.
2. Navigation box contains links to navigate to other pages of the Web site.
3. The Body contains the main information of the page. It may be static, such as a pre-written description of your information centre, or dynamic, generated “on the fly” by database or other applications.
4. The Footer normally contains page information such as owner of the page, contact address, date last modified etc.

Configuring software

       To configure a simulated Internet environment using the above-mentioned software, right-click the Personal Web Server icon at the task column, select Properties and click; at the Personal Web Manager window, click the Advanced icon and then check the Enable Default Document option and type your start Web page name. For the purpose of this article, the name we have chosen is Test.html.

       After you have made this configuration, every time you start the browser and type http://127.0.0.1 or http://localhost at the location box of the browser, “Test.html” will automatically start, just as in publishing in the real Internet environment.

Install wwwi32.exe

       Installation of wwwi32.exe is very easy: This software can be freely downloaded using the following file transfer protocol: ftp://brmg.bireme.br/ then copying it to the “C:\Inetpub\scripts\” directory created when installing the Personal Web Server, or PWS.

Install or copy other files in corresponding places

       WWWISIS needs a homepage file and some parameter files; these should reside in the corresponding paths.

• The Test.html Web page should reside in “C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\”. WWWISIS can be activated by the ACTION element, which is the key attribute of the FORM element of the Web page.
• The input-parameter file and relative parameter files, a total of four files, should all reside in the “C:\Inetpub\scripts\” directory, i.e. in the same place as wwwi32.exe.

       The CDS/ISIS database can be searched or updated by WWWISIS; in this case, the database is assumed to be at “C:\isis\data” directory.

Explanation of the WWWISIS search function with a sample example

       WWWISIS operates as a server through the WWW CGI, which is an integral part of WWW servers that provides a mechanism to call other programs. Thus, requests from a WWW browser to a WWW server may be sent to a program or a script, which in turn may retrieve data from a database and send the output back to the WWW server, that transfers it to the WWW browser, usually in HTML format. Below are the three main steps of the WWWISIS search function, with an example.

1. The browser (client) of the Web collects data (provided by input-parameter-file) through FORMS in the homepage and sends the data to the WWW server, that calls the wwwi32.exe (WWWISIS execution module) specified in the ACTION attribute of the FORM element.
   

   Under Windows NT, wwwi32.exe is run through FORM input or HTML link by calling the software as follows:

   <form method="post" action="/scripts/wwwi32.exe/[in=input-parameter-file]/">
   .........
   .........
   </form>

   or

   <a href=/scripts/wwwi32.exe/[in=input-parameter-file]/>Search ISIS Database</a>

   The following is the example page source code:

   Test.html
   <html>
   <head><title>WWWISIS Search INSNEW Database Test Page</title></head>
   <body>

   Fill in the Search Word and SUBMIT the form:

   <P><form method="post" action="/scripts/wwwi32.exe/[in=Test]/">
   <input type="text" name="search" size="20">
   <input type="submit" value="submit" name="B1">
   <input type="reset" value="reset" name="B2">
   </form>
   </body>
   </html>

   This page name could be Default.html and configured as the auto start page of the browser via PWS.

   wwwi32.exe uses the input-parameter-file (named Test in this example), prolog file (named TestHead.pft in this example), cgi file (named Test.cgi in this example) and epilog file (named TestTail.pft in this example) together to initiate a search of the CDS/ISIS database. WWWISIS operation is driven by parameters given by all four of these files; a key feature of WWWISIS is its capability to auto-generate the contents of the execution parameters. In other words, when wwwi32.exe starts, it generates the search information and provides it to CDS/ISIS to execute the search operation on the CDS/ISIS database.

   Test

   prolog=@TestHead.pft

   tcg=2001

   cgi=@Test.cgi

   h2=100

   epilog=@TestTail.pft
   
   TestHead.pft

   'Content-Type: text/html',##

   '<html>',/

   '<head>',/

   '<title>Search Test</title>',/

   '</head>',/

   '<body>',/

   '<b>The search results</b><br>',/
   
   Test.cgi

   'db=c:\isis\data\insnew',/
   'bool=',(if v2001^n='search' then v2001^v fi /),

   'pft=@c:\isis\data\Test.pft'
   
   TestTail.pft
   '<b>The end of the search</b>',/

   '</body>',/

   '</html>'

   Test file is the input-parameter-file which defines all other parameter files and parameters that WWWISIS will use. The parameter tcg permits the specification of the tag number where the data will be stored in the CGI-environment and virtual record. The input element name component is stored in subfield ^n and the input element value in subfield ^v . The parameter h2 limits the maximum number of hits to be retrieved.

   TestHead.pft file, which contains the prolog parameter, formats “header” component of the Web page.

   Test.cgi, which contains the cgi parameter, format the “Body” component of the Web page. Cgi parameters define the database name, capture the user search string, and define the output display format of the retrieved records.

   TestTail.pft, which contains the epilog parameter, formats the “Footer” component of the Web page.

   All four files should reside in the “C:\Inetpub\scripts\” directory.

   Test.pft (output display format specified in Test.cgi)

   "<b>Name of Institution : </b>"v30"<br>"/

   "<b>Address : </b>"v32"<br>"/

   "<b>Country : </b>"v33"<br>"/

   "<b>Objectives : </b>"v52"<br>"/

   "<b>Areas : </b>"v62"<br>"/

   '<hr>'/

   The Test.pft file should reside in C:\isis\data\ along with the database file.

   When CDS/ISIS finishes the search operation, WWWISIS sends the output text generated via ISIS formatting language to the WWW server, that transfers it to the World Wide Web browser.

   WWWISIS output to the Web browser is generated via ISIS formatting language. Taking into account the possibility of including HTML codes in format specifications, using conditional and unconditional literals, it is possible to make use of all the homepage graphic and hypertext features.

   In this example, if you search “liaoning” from the “insnew” database, the resulting homepage would show the following:

   Search results Name of Institution : Institute of Population Research, Liaoning University Address : No.66, Chongshan Zhong Road, Shenyang, 110036, Liaoning, China Country : China Objectives : To provide the basis on which the government's policies are formulated, by performing research on population and society. Areas : basic knowledge on demographic research, methodology, technical writing/repackaging Name of Institution : Liaoning Population Information Center Address : No.54, Wenhua Donglu, Dongling District, Shengyang, 110015, China Country : China Objectives : To collect, process, study and report on population and family planning information, mainly in the region of Northeastern China, to carry out applied research on population, and to provide leaders at all levels, researchers on population theory and family planning workers with population information. The end of the search

   
   
   

   The end of the search

   The source code of this Web page generated by WWWISIS would be:

   <html>

   <head>

   <title>Search Test</title>

   </head>

   <body>

   <b>The search results</b><br>

   <b>Name of Institution : </b>Institute of Population Research, Liaoning University<br>

   <b>Address : </b>No.66, Chongshan Zhong Road, Shenyang, 110036, Liaoning, China<br>

   <b>Country : </b>China<br>

   <b>Objectives : </b>To provide the basis on which the government's policies are formulated, by performing research on population and society.<br>

   <b>Areas : </b>basic knowledge on demographic research, methodology, technical writing/repackaging<br>

   <hr>

   <b>Name of Institution : </b>Liaoning Population Information Center<br>

   <b>Address : </b>No.54, Wenhua Donglu, Dongling District, Shengyang, 110015, China<br>

   <b>Country : </b>China<br>

   <b>Objectives : </b>To collect, process, study and report on population and family planning information mainly in the region of Northeastern China, to carry out applied research on population, and to provide leaders at all levels, researchers on population theory and family planning workers with population information.<br>

   <hr>

   <b>The end of the search</b>

   </body>

   </html>

   From this sample WWWISIS search example, it is not difficult to understand the mechanism of how WWWISIS works.

   
   

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