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Serializer

MetadataSerializer is responsible for serializing and deserializing OpenmrsObjects. It is build upon XStream library and uses XML format. It is able to produce a list of metadata with all related items and a package header that contains information such as name, description, creation date, OpenMRS version. They are stored in two separate files called metadata.xml and header.xml and packaged in a zip file.

You can implement the writeReplace/readResolve methods in your shareable class if you want to provide a custom serialization. It needs to conform standard rules specified in the Java documentation. You can use it to provide extra dependencies for your object which you need to export together with your object. Typically it is not needed since all fields of your object will be examined and references to other objects resolved and serialized as well. However, you will need to define an extra field for dependencies and initialize it in the writeReplace method, if you reference objects in xmls or other text formats.

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Example of a publish URL: http:/localhost:8080/openmrs/ws/rest/metadatasharing/package/7f2d4731-0a98-4118-8fe0-d4b9731986c6/latest

<subscriptionHeader id="1">
    <packageHeader id="2" uuid="874f1efb-d73e-4093-9dd9-6e532be3a6fe">
        <dateCreated id="3">2011-08-18 00:30:45</dateCreated>
        <name>Roles</name>
        <description>All available roles</description>
        <openmrsVersion>1.8.2 Build 21762</openmrsVersion>
        <version>5</version>
        <group>7f2d4731-0a98-4118-8fe0-d4b9731986c6</group>
    </packageHeader>
    <contentUri id="4">../7f2d4731-0a98-4118-8fe0-d4b9731986c6/5/download</contentUri>
</subscriptionHeader>

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The download URL is similar to publish URL, but it ends with: %VERSION/download. This allows us to download any published version of the package, but this feature is not used yet. 

Fetching packages on the fly via the metadata REST webservice

The module provides a REST web service exposing an API. Currently, only one operation is provided i.e to fetch a package from a remote server, both GET or POST are supported.

Packages can be fetched either programmatically or by entering the appropriate url with the expected request parameters in the browser and your will get the download prompt. Packages can be fetched as plain text or as a zip file.

Request Parameters: (* denotes required parameter)

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URL Format:

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[server:url]/ws/module/metadatasharing/getMetadata?&[requestParameters]

Example of the URL

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