Modifying the NTD of a workspace

[Dave Brosius <db...@mebigfatguy.com>]

We are developing a set of node type definitions for our application, and as 
is to be expected it is changing over time as we develop it. So far, we have 
just deleted the repository, and started over whenever we make a change to 
the NTD, which is perfectly fine in development. My question is, when 
customers have a repository in place with a defined NTD, and a new version 
of our software is to be shipped, how do we manage the upgrading of data 
from one NTD to another?


Are there any general guidelines for this? Do you have to drop the NTD 
completely, make the changes, then reinstall the new NTD? 

Re: Modifying the NTD of a workspace

[James Abley <ja...@gmail.com>]

On 02/04/2008, Dave Brosius <db...@mebigfatguy.com> wrote:
> We are developing a set of node type definitions for our application, and as
> is to be expected it is changing over time as we develop it. So far, we have
> just deleted the repository, and started over whenever we make a change to
> the NTD, which is perfectly fine in development. My question is, when
> customers have a repository in place with a defined NTD, and a new version
> of our software is to be shipped, how do we manage the upgrading of data
> from one NTD to another?
>
>
>  Are there any general guidelines for this? Do you have to drop the NTD
> completely, make the changes, then reinstall the new NTD?

Ideally, we try to treat it like any schema change in a normal relational DB.

1. Update the table schemas, with relaxed constraints where needed.
2. Update the data; e.g. set default values on legacy columns,
populate other new columns with data migration scripts, etc.
3. Apply constraints and remove any unwanted cruft now that we have
the data in place to support the updated schema.

This does map reasonably well to NTD changes too. YMMV depending on
the environment that you work in. So far, we've not had to write any
code to do step 2, but we are aware that we might need to someday, if
our NTD evolves very drastically (or if we start hitting a fundamental
limitation of our model versus how jackrabbit operates).

Cheers,

James

Re: Modifying the NTD of a workspace

[Dave Brosius <db...@mebigfatguy.com>]

This is the best reference i've found

http://jackrabbit.apache.org/node-types.html

and the two associated links at the bottom of this page.

Even an idiot like me was able to make sense of it all from this. :)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Charles Johnson" <cj...@proteanit.net>
To: <us...@jackrabbit.apache.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 2:41 AM
Subject: Re: Modifying the NTD of a workspace


>I took your advice and am looking into ntd myself but so far haven't seen 
>many 'in the wild'. I expect yours could be commercially sensitive but 
>where can i see more of these? 
>http://wiki.apache.org/jackrabbit/NodeTypeRegistry seems to be pretty empty
>
> CJ
>
> Dave Brosius wrote:
>> We are developing a set of node type definitions for our application, and 
>> as is to be expected it is changing over time as we develop it. So far, 
>> we have just deleted the repository, and started over whenever we make a 
>> change to the NTD, which is perfectly fine in development. My question 
>> is, when customers have a repository in place with a defined NTD, and a 
>> new version of our software is to be shipped, how do we manage the 
>> upgrading of data from one NTD to another?
>>
>>
>> Are there any general guidelines for this? Do you have to drop the NTD 
>> completely, make the changes, then reinstall the new NTD?
>>
>
> 

Re: Modifying the NTD of a workspace

[Charles Johnson <cj...@proteanit.net>]

I took your advice and am looking into ntd myself but so far haven't 
seen many 'in the wild'. I expect yours could be commercially sensitive 
but where can i see more of these? 
http://wiki.apache.org/jackrabbit/NodeTypeRegistry seems to be pretty empty

CJ

Dave Brosius wrote:
> We are developing a set of node type definitions for our application, 
> and as is to be expected it is changing over time as we develop it. So 
> far, we have just deleted the repository, and started over whenever we 
> make a change to the NTD, which is perfectly fine in development. My 
> question is, when customers have a repository in place with a defined 
> NTD, and a new version of our software is to be shipped, how do we 
> manage the upgrading of data from one NTD to another?
>
>
> Are there any general guidelines for this? Do you have to drop the NTD 
> completely, make the changes, then reinstall the new NTD?
>