Connectivity Providers Database

From: ghw@anbg.gov.au (Greg Whitbread) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 93 22:09:24 EST DBMS Gateways: A Gopher at the Australian National Botanic Gardens. ============== The Gopher protocol provides a simple and reliable standard for the distribution and retrieval of information. The number of gopher servers is growing daily and it may not be long before a gopher client is standard inclusion in every workstations' network toolkit. Dataset custodians need now only provide a Gopher server and gateways into existing data services to make their information available to a wide audience. In a research context, the client base may already be Gopher-literate (Gopherate). Local users love Gopher as a means of accessing information in relational databases. Using Perl and the go4gw server, building gateways into existing datasets is a simple and relatively painless exercise. If your application is built on the Oracle DBMS, oraperl is also recomended (perl extensions for other DBMS?). If you can write a script that understands your database and can communicate with a gopher, anything is possible. Wrap your SQL in a little Perl, present a directory of options to the client and respond to its selections. The Australian National Botanic Gardens Gopher server is available at 155.187.10.12 on port 70 [domain name hassles should be over next week and we will post our new address]. It incorporates gateways into our Oracle based Integrated Botanic Information system (IBIS), and presents to the client directories of search options ( gopher type 7 ) that may be applied recursively to construct relatively complex SQL queries. Output is available in tagged (useful for other applications, maybe ASN.1 soon) and human readable formats. Drop in and have a look around. Gateways can be found in the "ANBG Information Services " directory under "IBIS Database Gateway" and access is currently available to the Australian Plant Name Index and the CBG herbarium records. We also use it internally for access to registry applications. The Living collection and Photograph applications will be added soon. Please look at the README files and take account of the fact that we are still experimenting. Query options vary with the application, items may change location and new options may be added on a daily basis. There is also a lot of interesting information for people with botanic or environmental biodiversions; discriptive and background information, and a few test images, from the gardens is available in the ANBG Gopher menu structure. Mail to ghw@anbg.gov.au if you you have problems with the application, like what you find, can see potential that is not yet tapped, or would like more information, scripts, etc. Many thanks to the GopherTeam at UofMN for gopher, Larry Wall for Perl, Kevin Stock for oraperl and (of course) Oracle. greg Feb 7 1993 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greg Whitbread ghw@anbg.gov.au Integrated Botanic Information System voice: 61-6-2509482 Australian National Botanic Gardens fax: 61-6-2509599 ------- A division of Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service --------