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Dictionary of Metamerge Integrator Terms

Admin-tool

The Metamerge Server consist of a Java engine running a configuration file.  The configuration file defines the server.  The configuration file is a text-file, but you usually edit it by a graphical user interface called the Administrator or the Admin-tool.  The admin-tool is installed with the product.

AssemblyLine

The basic work object within a Server.  It consist of Connectors, Parsers and business logic.  Connectors typically feed data in and out of the AssemblyLine.

Attribute

Contained in Entries and holding Values (single or multiple). 

Computed Changes

A special feature of the Update Connector mode

Connector

What plugs into your data source in order to read it.  Inside the AssemblyLine we differ between the Raw Connector and the AssemblyLine, the latter wrapping the first and adding a set of methods.  Connectors can work in different modes, iterate, delete, update, add only, lookup and passive. An example for the JDBC Connector illustrate these.

Delta

A special term used in Iterator mode used when synchronising a master and a slave.  Click here for more information

Entry

A term used both for the entry object but also for the top level 'item' used by the AssemblyLine and Connectors.  An entry typically corresponds to a row in a database table/view, a record from a file or an object in a directory.  Entries contain Attributes which contains Values.  For example, an iterator might return the next person (the entry), having the attributes city, name and phone.  The values of the three attributes would be London, Holmes and 5632. 

Epilog

A piece of code that, if present, is run after the AssemblyLine data flow ends.  It typically contains saving of parameter to be used next time the assemblyline runs (see task.getParam and task.setParam). See also Prolog.

EventHandler

Used to decide when AssemblyLines are to be started.  Will usually pass an initial work Entry to the AssemblyLine.

Prolog

Code that, if present, is run before the AssemblyLine data flow starts. Code can be run both before and after all Connectors are initialised. See also Epilog.

Properties

Contained in Entries and holding a single value.  Mostly used in Event Handler Action maps. See also Attribute

Server

The Admin-tool lets you define servers.  Once you have defined a server, it will be started from the command line (see Command Line Options) and perform the actual work.  The server might run AssemblyLines directly, but it might also start EventHandlers that will start AssemblyLines when needed.

Task

By convention all threads ( AssemblyLines, EventHandlers etc) are referred to as the "task" object. See task object.

Update

One of the Connector modes.  Update will perform a lookup for the object you want to update, and if it is found it will modify the existing entry.  If it does not exist it will add it.  See also Computed Changes.

Value

See Entry and Attribute

Work Entry

An instance of the Entry class called work. If no work Entry exist, non-Iterator  Connectors will not be called:  The work Entry is an object that lets Connectors share data within an AssemblyLine.  If you don't get work from an iterator, you can create it in the Prolog by using task.setWork():

init_work = system.newEntry(); // Create a new Entry object
init_work.setAttribute("uid", "cchateauvieux"); // populate it
task.setWork(init_work); // make it known as work to the Connectors

 

 

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  Metamerge Integrator version 4.5 ©Copyright Metamerge AS 2000-2002 Last edited 2002-04-30 contact us