Frequently Asked Questions
General questions
What is PyWrapper?
coming soon...
What is a protocol?
There are many definitions of what a protocol is depending very much in which sense. In the PyWrapper world a protocol, like the TAPIR protocol, is a set of rules governing communication within and between computing endpoints. That is in our case between a data provider, who was a database to be query, and a portal, who wants to query this database.
What is the TAPIR protocol?
Please see:
Which other protocols will PyWrapper support?
The main objetive of PyWrapper is TAPIR but we have in mind, and we have started, implementing also the Web Feature Service (WFS) from OGC and SPICE for Species2000.
Will PyWrapper support the BioCASe protocol?
It is not a priority and we will recommend all BioCASe providers to upgrade and start using TAPIR. So the answer is NO unless you can give us good reasons to say YES.
Is it going to be easy to update from the BioCASe Provider Software to PyWrapper?
Hopefully yes. Because both are using the same background technology we will try to provide a "please click here to update" button solution.
When is the first release of PyWrapper expected?
Check the Roadmap. We will try to have it ready before the summer, but this will highly depend on the time disponibility of the developers. Right now PyWrapper is only being developed in free time.
Why is the first version called 3.0 and not 1.0?
The current PyWrapper code we are working on is very much based on the older BioCASe provider software (BPS). BPS reached version 2.4.x when it was superceeded by this TAPIR based PyWrapper version so we raised it to the next higher major version - which is 3! The BioCASe PyWrapper had a confusing versioning system. Actually the core wrapper had a different version (1.7.x at the end) than the rest of the "webapplications", which were considered to be in version 2.4.x. Starting with version 3 hopefully ends this confusion and there is a single version now for the entire pywrapper package including the webapplications.
Is there any client available for PyWrapper?
Well, it depends on what client you want. Potencially every program that can open XML documents from a url will be a TAPIR client and therefore a PyWrapper client. This is because of the way you can use to TAPIR to create CustomOutputFormats?. We have tried successfully producing KML for Google Earth. We have also tried producing RSS. If what you are looking for is a portal like http://www.gbif.net there is still no available software that works with TAPIR. We have plans to port the QueryTool that was existing in the old BioCASe Provider Software to work with TAPIR (using AJAX if you are curious).
How can I speed up the development?
You can of course join the development, take a look at the Contribute section. Other possibility is that you or your project ask for commercial support, check the Support section for more info.
