4 htsn-import \- Import XML files from The Sports Network into an RDBMS.
8 \fBhtsn-import\fR [OPTIONS] [FILES]
12 The Sports Network <http://www.sportsnetwork.com/> offers an XML feed
13 containing various sports news and statistics. Our sister program
14 \fBhtsn\fR is capable of retrieving the feed and saving the individual
15 XML documents contained therein. But what to do with them?
17 The purpose of \fBhtsn-import\fR is to take these XML documents and
18 get them into something we can use, a relational database management
19 system (RDBMS), otherwise known as a SQL database. The structure of
20 relational database, is, well, relational, and the feed XML is not. So
21 there is some work to do before the data can be imported into the
24 First, we must parse the XML. Each supported document type (see below)
25 has a full pickle/unpickle implementation (\(dqpickle\(dq is simply a
26 synonym for serialize here). That means that we parse the entire
27 document into a data structure, and if we pickle (serialize) that data
28 structure, we get the exact same XML document tha we started with.
30 This is important for two reasons. First, it serves as a second level
31 of validation. The first validation is performed by the XML parser,
32 but if that succeeds and unpicking fails, we know that something is
33 fishy. Second, we don't ever want to be surprised by some new element
34 or attribute showing up in the XML. The fact that we can unpickle the
35 whole thing now means that we won't be surprised in the future.
37 The aforementioned feature is especially important because we
38 automatically migrate the database schema every time we import a
39 document. If you attempt to import a \(dqnewsxml.dtd\(dq document, all
40 database objects relating to the news will be created if they do not
41 exist. We don't want the schema to change out from under us without
42 warning, so it's important that no XML be parsed that would result in
43 a different schema than we had previously. Since we can
44 pickle/unpickle everything already, this should be impossible.
46 .SH SUPPORTED DOCUMENT TYPES
48 The XML document types obtained from the feed are uniquely identified
49 by their DTDs. We currently support documents with the following DTDs:
51 AutoRacingResultsXML.dtd
53 Auto_Racing_Schedule_XML.dtd
57 Injuries_Detail_XML.dtd
78 Matchup_NBA_NHL_XML.dtd
80 MLB_Gaming_Matchup_XML.dtd
90 NBA_Gaming_Matchup_XML.dtd
92 NBA_Playoff_Matchup_XML.dtd
98 NCAA_FB_Preview_XML.dtd
100 NFL_NCAA_FB_Matchup_XML.dtd
108 WorldBaseballPreviewXML.dtd
116 Cbask_All_Tourn_Teams_XML.dtd
124 Cbask_Conf_Standings_XML.dtd
126 Cbask_DivII_III_Indv_Stats_XML.dtd
128 Cbask_DivII_Team_Stats_XML.dtd
130 Cbask_DivIII_Team_Stats_XML.dtd
133 The GameInfo and SportInfo types do not have their own top-level
134 tables in the database. Instead, their raw XML is stored in either the
135 \(dqgame_info\(dq or \(dqsport_info\(dq table respectively.
139 At the top level (with two notable exceptions), we have one table for
140 each of the XML document types that we import. For example, the
141 documents corresponding to \fInewsxml.dtd\fR will have a table called
142 \(dqnews\(dq. All top-level tables contain two important fields,
143 \(dqxml_file_id\(dq and \(dqtime_stamp\(dq. The former is unique and
144 prevents us from inserting the same data twice. The time stamp on the
145 other hand lets us know when the data is old and can be removed. The
146 database schema make it possible to delete only the outdated top-level
147 records; all transient children should be removed by triggers.
149 These top-level tables will often have children. For example, each
150 news item has zero or more locations associated with it. The child
151 table will be named <parent>_<children>, which in this case
152 corresponds to \(dqnews_locations\(dq.
154 To relate the two, a third table may exist with name
155 <parent>__<child>. Note the two underscores. This prevents ambiguity
156 when the child table itself contains underscores. The table joining
157 \(dqnews\(dq with \(dqnews_locations\(dq is thus called
158 \(dqnews__news_locations\(dq. This is necessary when the child table
159 has a unique constraint; we don't want to blindly insert duplicate
160 records keyed to the parent. Instead we'd like to use the third table
161 to map an existing child to the new parent.
163 Where it makes sense, children are kept unique to prevent pointless
164 duplication. This slows down inserts, and speeds up reads (which are
165 much more frequent). There is a tradeoff to be made, however. For a
166 table with a small, fixed upper bound on the number of rows (like
167 \(dqodds_casinos\(dq), there is great benefit to de-duplication. The
168 total number of rows stays small, so inserts are still quick, and many
169 duplicate rows are eliminated.
171 But, with a table like \(dqodds_games\(dq, the number of games grows
172 quickly and without bound. It is therefore more beneficial to be able
173 to delete the old games (through an ON DELETE CASCADE, tied to
174 \(dqodds\(dq) than it is to eliminate duplication. A table like
175 \(dqnews_locations\(dq is somewhere in-between. It is hoped that the
176 unique constraint in the top-level table's \(dqxml_file_id\(dq will
177 prevent duplication in this case anyway.
179 The aforementioned exceptions are the \(dqgame_info\(dq and
180 \(dqsport_info\(dq tables. These tables contain the raw XML for a
181 number of DTDs that are not handled individually. This is partially
182 for backwards-compatibility with a legacy implementation, but is
183 mostly a stopgap due to a lack of resources at the moment. These two
184 tables (game_info and sport_info) still possess timestamps that allow
185 us to prune old data.
187 UML diagrams of the resulting database schema for each XML document
188 type are provided with the \fBhtsn-import\fR documentation.
190 .SH XML Schema Oddities
192 There are a number of problems with the XML on the wire. Even if we
193 construct the DTDs ourselves, the results are sometimes
194 inconsistent. Here we document a few of them.
199 The <Notes> elements here are supposed to be associated with a set of
200 <Game> elements, but since the pair
201 (<Notes>...</Notes><Game>...</Game>) can appear zero or more times,
202 this leads to ambiguity in parsing. We therefore ignore the notes
203 entirely (although a hack is employed to facilitate parsing).
208 There appear to be two types of weather documents; the first has
209 <listing> contained within <forecast> and the second has <forecast>
210 contained within <listing>. While it would be possible to parse both,
211 it would greatly complicate things. The first form is more common, so
212 that's all we support for now.
216 .IP \fB\-\-backend\fR,\ \fB\-b\fR
217 The RDBMS backend to use. Valid choices are \fISqlite\fR and
218 \fIPostgres\fR. Capitalization is important, sorry.
222 .IP \fB\-\-connection-string\fR,\ \fB\-c\fR
223 The connection string used for connecting to the database backend
224 given by the \fB\-\-backend\fR option. The default is appropriate for
225 the \fISqlite\fR backend.
227 Default: \(dq:memory:\(dq
229 .IP \fB\-\-log-file\fR
230 If you specify a file here, logs will be written to it (possibly in
231 addition to syslog). Can be either a relative or absolute path. It
232 will not be auto-rotated; use something like logrotate for that.
236 .IP \fB\-\-log-level\fR
237 How verbose should the logs be? We log notifications at four levels:
238 DEBUG, INFO, WARN, and ERROR. Specify the \(dqmost boring\(dq level of
239 notifications you would like to receive (in all-caps); more
240 interesting notifications will be logged as well. The debug output is
241 extremely verbose and will not be written to syslog even if you try.
245 .IP \fB\-\-remove\fR,\ \fB\-r\fR
246 Remove successfully processed files. If you enable this, you can see
247 at a glance which XML files are not being processed, because they're
248 all that should be left.
252 .IP \fB\-\-syslog\fR,\ \fB\-s\fR
253 Enable logging to syslog. On Windows this will attempt to communicate
254 (over UDP) with a syslog daemon on localhost, which will most likely
259 .SH CONFIGURATION FILE
261 Any of the command-line options mentioned above can be specified in a
262 configuration file instead. We first look for \(dqhtsn-importrc\(dq in
263 the system configuration directory. We then look for a file named
264 \(dq.htsn-importrc\(dq in the user's home directory. The latter will
267 The user's home directory is simply $HOME on Unix; on Windows it's
268 wherever %APPDATA% points. The system configuration directory is
269 determined by Cabal; the \(dqsysconfdir\(dq parameter during the
270 \(dqconfigure\(dq step is used.
272 The file's syntax is given by examples in the htsn-importrc.example file
273 (included with \fBhtsn-import\fR).
275 Options specified on the command-line override those in either
280 Import newsxml.xml into a preexisting sqlite database named \(dqfoo.sqlite3\(dq:
283 .I $ htsn-import --connection-string='foo.sqlite3' \\\\
284 .I " test/xml/newsxml.xml"
285 Successfully imported test/xml/newsxml.xml.
286 Imported 1 document(s) total.
289 Repeat the previous example, but delete newsxml.xml afterwards:
292 .I $ htsn-import --connection-string='foo.sqlite3' \\\\
293 .I " --remove test/xml/newsxml.xml"
294 Successfully imported test/xml/newsxml.xml.
295 Imported 1 document(s) total.
296 Removed processed file test/xml/newsxml.xml.
299 Use a Postgres database instead of the default Sqlite. This assumes
300 that you have a database named \(dqhtsn\(dq accessible to user
301 \(dqpostgres\(dq locally:
304 .I $ htsn-import --connection-string='dbname=htsn user=postgres' \\\\
305 .I " --backend=Postgres test/xml/newsxml.xml"
306 Successfully imported test/xml/newsxml.xml.
307 Imported 1 document(s) total.
313 Send bugs to michael@orlitzky.com.