VOClient v1.0 -- VO Interfaces and Applications ----------------------------------------------- Last Revised 2/27/13 The VOClient package is a collection of programming APIs and command-line tools that provide a user-ready VO software distribution for both scientists and developers. The initial release of the package is intended primarily to distribute the completed CLI tools, additional tasks are planned as new functionality is added to the libraries and as new standards come on-line in the VO. Although the underlying libraries are included in this release and are fully functional, they lack the documentation and multi-language interfaces we have planned for the final vision of the package. We expect a release that better supports developers will be available in mid-2013. Later releases will contain additional interfaces and tasks as needed. README - This file Makefile - Top-level makefile TODO - ToDo list bin - application binaries doc - documentation, design notes, etc include - library include files lib - libraries common - shared dependency library codes libsamp - SAMP interface libvo - VOTable parser libvoclient - Client side service code libvotable - VOTable parser voapps - CLI application source code voclient - Java VOClient Daemon source code test-data - sample test data files CLI Task Summary ---------------- The VOClient package includes a number of command-line utilities built from the underlying interfaces. These tasks can be scripted from any number of environments or used in a standalone manner. Tasks distributed as part of this release include: DATA ACCESS UTILITIES voatlas - Query the SkyView Image service for an all-sky image vocatalog - Query VO catalog services for data vodata - query and access VO data services voimage - Query VO image services for data votiminfo - Print/Get information about a FITS file's structure vosloanspec - Query for SDSS spectra vospectra - Query VO spectral services for data votopic - Query for data from resources specified by topic keyword NAME RESOLUTION UTILITIES vosesame - call the Sesame name resolver service REGISTRY UTILITIES voregistry - VO Registry search client VOTABLE UTILITIES votcnv - Convert from VOTable to another format votget - Download URLs or access references in a VOTable votinfo - Get information about a VOTable votpos - Extract the main positional columns from a VOTable votsort - Extract the main positional columns from a VOTable votstat - Compute statistics for numeric columns of a VOTable. Additional tasks will be added as interfaces are expanded and new capabilities are added to the system. Client-Side Libraries --------------------- The VOClient provides a number of APIs to support developers building science applications of their own, or for use in other environments. These libraries are implemented in C and provide additional bindings for a number of VO supported languages. Each interface is fully documented and higher- level "User's Guide" documentation is planned for each interface. libvoapps High-level interface to application functionality. Tasks are built on these routines to provide the cmdline user interface, but are encapsulated in an API to provide this functionality to other environ- ments easily (as opposed to having that functionality be re-implemented using the low-level interfaces). libvotable A VOTable parser library. The interface provides both read (lax parsing) and write (strict compliance) capabilities. Reference is VOTable v1.2. libvoclient A VO Service interface library. This interface uses the VOClient Daemon to access a variety of VO web services (Registry, Sesame, DAL services, etc) which then communicate to the API to pass information back to the application. libsamp Client-side SAMP interface library. This interface allows an application to send and receive SAMP messages but does NOT (at this time) provide a local Hub implementation. Applications can register their own functions to be used as callbacks in response to a message, the API provides only the middle-ware needed to handle the SAMP protocol. Using Pre-Built Binaries ------------------------ Pre-built binary distributions are available containg both source and binaries for a specific platform. These distribution names are of the form voclient--bin..tar.gz They may be unpacked with the command tar zxf //voclient--bin..tar.gz This will produce a 'voclient' subdirectory containing the unpacked distribution. Within that directory you'll find the following important directories needed to install the package on the system: bin/ Task binaries lib/ API library files include/ Program header files The contents of these directories should be copied to some system directory available in the normal user paths. For example, to install in /usr/local % cd //voclient % sudo cp bin/* /usr/local/bin % sudo cp lib/* /usr/local/lib % sudo cp include/* /usr/local/include When compiling new applications the appropriate '-I' and '-L' flags will need to be set to find the libraries and include files needed. The binary installation directory should be some directory in the normal $PATH environment setting. Building VOClient from Source ----------------------------- The source distribution of the release is containe in the file voclient-src.tar.gz It may be unpacked with the command tar zxf //voclient-src.tar.gz This will produce a 'voclient' subdirectory containing the unpacked distribution. Utility scripts are used throughout the system to do the platform configuration necessary, therefore the only command needed to build the package is: % cd //voclient % make As with the pre-built binary described above, the following important directories are needed to install the package on the system: bin/ Task binaries lib/ API library files include/ Program header files In a successful build the libraries and binaries are installed in the package 'bin' and 'lib' directories, header files needed for program development are put in the 'include' directory. The contents of these directories should be copied to some system directory available in the normal user paths. For example, to install in /usr/local % cd //voclient % sudo cp bin/* /usr/local/bin % sudo cp lib/* /usr/local/lib % sudo cp include/* /usr/local/include When compiling new applications the appropriate '-I' and '-L' flags will need to be set to find the libraries and include files needed. The binary installation directory should be some directory in the normal $PATH environment setting. Supported Platforms ------------------- This release currently supports the following platforms: Mac OSX 32-bit and 64-bit Intel, OSX 10.6 and later Linux 32-bit 32-bit Linux systems (Fedora, Redhat, Ubuntu, etc) Linux 64-bit 64-bit Linux systems (Fedora, Redhat, Ubuntu, etc) Additional platforms will be added as needed. Revision History ---------------- 2/27/13 Initial Release v1.0 Help and Contact Info --------------------- For help, questions or suggestions please feel free to contact Mike Fitzpatrick (fitz@noao.edu) or the VAO Help Desk at http://www.usvao.org/contact-connect/ Questions may also be posted the VAO forums at http://astrobabel.net