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http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DIRSERVER-760?page=comments#action_12448361
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Norval Hope commented on DIRSERVER-760:
---------------------------------------

After submitting a tidier patch, here are some answers/comment son Emmanuel's 
questions/notes:

> To bring some thiughts to you questions :
> 1) I agree with you. Schema should be available somwhere alese than in jars. 
> What we can also do is to preload them into a partition. I'm
> dreaming of a Ldap server which use itself to manage schema... Of course, you 
> will still have schema files, but you will just parse them at start 
> only if they have been 'touched'. Does it sounds crazy ?

If by this you mean persisting whats read from the .schema files into LDAP 
representation in the JDBM backend, then I can see that's possible but don't 
really see the motivation. The schema import process at start-up adds very 
little overhead, so runtime impact is not a big motivator. My concern with 
persisting the schemas imported is simply that it makes them harder to manage, 
instead of commenting out a line in a server.xml to hide a schema I'd need to 
delete a bunch of LDAP objects. While there is a single global schema this is 
quite problematic as objects from all the .schemas are mixed together.

My primary use-case if for schema information to be contributed dynamically 
after start-up, for instance just prior to activating a custom partition 
requiring additional schema support.

> 1.a) I think that the spring approach seems better, from my point of view. 
> This can be discussed. For normalizer and comparator, we should
> consider that we will have System Normalizer/Comparator, and User Defined 
> N/C. Only those last classes should be put in Spring file, otherwise, > we 
> will end with a monster configuration file :)

I prefer explicit solutions too but see problems with a Spring approach because 
the most important part of manually added schema items in the pluggable code 
that actually implements added behaviour (other then that there are mainly just 
basic attributes like names and OIDS). As far as I'm aware Spring can't help 
too much with the need for custom code except for allowing you to create named 
classes, and creating constructor chains of named classes. That's why I said in 
a previous comment that I thought an extra class for every manually added 
schema item wouldn't be the best path.

> 2) Yes, a lot of dead code will be removed. We can do that in the branch. 
> Man, I hope you will get karam quickly :)

I'm afraid I don't know Maven very well so I may need to ask for help in the 
tidy-up, when we get to this phase. For instance with the conf/*.schema files 
I'm currently getting the uber-jar to read, I don't know how i'd get Maven to 
copy them around and/or where would be the best place to copy them to, so that 
installer/embedded/uberjar release flavours can all find them. So karma isn't 
necessarily a complete answer.

> 3) We badly need some documentation :( I'm trying to improve it, but it takes 
> a *lot* of time, as I don't have a deep knowledge of all the code, and to be 
> sure that I don't write down stupid tgings. And because english is not my 
> favorite language, too :)

I'm happy to help as time permits, once the details have been reviewed so that 
there is a sufficient level of confidence to start documenting.

As an aside, who is the guru of the existing schema code? Is it Alex? Is there 
any chance we can get this person to cast their eye quickly over my patch (once 
it's committed on the schema branch) and get any feedback on some of my 
questions in the comment trail for this issue?



> reading .schema files at server start-up
> ----------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: DIRSERVER-760
>                 URL: http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DIRSERVER-760
>             Project: Directory ApacheDS
>          Issue Type: New Feature
>          Components: core
>    Affects Versions: 1.5.1
>         Environment: N/A
>            Reporter: Norval Hope
>         Attachments: schema_branch.patch, schema_branch.patch, 
> schema_loader.patch
>
>
> I am submitting a patch for a feature I required, and which I've seen a 
> number of queries about on the DEV list. Currently the only way to get new 
> .schema information into ApacheDS is to use the Maven2 plugin, requiring a 
> rebuild of the server (not to mention working around problems like methods 
> being generated which are too long for Java to handle).
> Instead this patch adds support for reading of  specified .schema files from 
> server.xml at server startup, via a new interface SchemaLoader and a default 
> implementation FileSystemSchemaLoader. The latter supports reading all files 
> matching a specified regex in a specified directory (in which case users must 
> be careful to ensure that files appear lexicographically before their 
> dependant files, ala init.rc in Linux) or reading an ordered list of file 
> names under a specified directory. An example server.xml snippet is as 
> follows:
>     <property name="bootstrapSchemas">
>       <set>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.AutofsSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.CorbaSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.CoreSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.CosineSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.ApacheSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.CollectiveSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.InetorgpersonSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.JavaSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.Krb5kdcSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.NisSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.SystemSchema"/>
>         <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.bootstrap.ApachednsSchema"/>
>       </set>
>     </property>
>     <property name="schemaLoaders">
>         <list>
>             <bean 
> class="org.apache.directory.server.core.schema.FileSystemSchemaLoader">
>                 <constructor-arg><value>./</value></constructor-arg>
>                 
> <!--<constructor-arg><value>.*_openldap.schema</value></constructor-arg>-->
>                 <constructor-arg>
>                     <list>
>                         <value>my1_openldap.schema</value>
>                         <value>my2_openldap.schema</value>
>                     </list>
>                 </constructor-arg>
>             </bean>
>         </list>
>     </property>
> noting that the Maven2 style approach is of course still supported where 
> desired. A list is used so that multiple SchemaLoader implementations can be 
> appended if required (which I do). 
> I have also included SchemaFromSearchConverter which can read a schema from 
> another directory via conventional query, which may come in useful for people 
> using ApacheDS as a virtual directory container of sorts. It is not required 
> by the core patch and can be excluded if no generic use is seen for it.
> A few issues are still outstanding:
>    1. Is the patch seen as worthwhile by the DEV list and/or are there any 
> issues with my implementation of it?
>    2. At it's core the patch uses the OpenLdapSchemaParser to read the 
> .schema files, which is currently only available in the Maven2 plugin 
> artifact     
> <groupId>org.apache.directory.server</groupId>
> <artifactId>apacheds-core-plugin</artifactId>
>    
>     which is a bit clunky as it means people need to include this jar in 
> their classpath (or in the UberJar). Perhaps this parsing component should be 
> separated from the rest of the maven plugin to tidy this up (I don't know 
> maven well enough to do this myself).
>    
>    3. If the feature and implementation are ok, what further steps should I 
> take re preparing the patch for inclusion?
> Thanks (by the way I was previously known as Norbert Reilly)

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