[ic] developers list

[Larry Morley]

Mike - hope you're watching now ;)

I got blown off the last time I asked a very similar question; hopefully
that
won't be the case this time ...  I apologize in advance for the lengthy
post,
but don't know of any other way to attempt to get an answer to these...

First, please let me say I really like Interchange and have been able to do
a lot with it.  This is *not* a slam of it.

That said, there's several things about Interchange that have been pretty
elusive to me - some of it seems to stem from the location of files when
it's
installed from the RPM (as opposed to building the source).  Some of
whats in the docs apply to a source install but not to the RPM install;
for instance, the RPM creates /usr/lib/interchange (the IC install
directory)
and /var/lib/interchange (the catalog install directory).  There's bits and
pieces of a lot of "stuff" in each; I'm having a lot of difficulty
ascertaining
which is which ...

first is how the heck do you switch a database table from SQL to, say,
gdbm?  I'd like to have both ...  I'd like to be able to change operational
characteristics of Interchange like this on the fly, but I can't quite
figure
out what all the files that are affected and the appropriate entries for
them are ...

One thing I noticed was this - in my products.dbm (in default_db) - when
set up to run PostgreSQL: the file reads:

Database       products       products.txt       TAB
Database       products       HOT                  1
Database       products       INDEX              category:c

What the heck do the last two lines mean?  I can't find any documentation
on HOT anywhere...  and, makecat is the only thing I can find that'll set
the parameters above (and others) to their appropriate values.

second is exactly how are tags, parameters, etc. passed around and what
are they - I guess a better question is can you point me towards some
docs that don't read like a jigsaw puzzle.  A lot of stuff in, say, the
payment
processing routines seems to be a carry-over or not implemented.  For
example,

   my ($user,$secret,$amount) = @_;

would seem to indicate that amount would contain something; yet, it
never does.  I have to get it via

   $amount = Vend::Interpolate::total_cost();
   $amount = sprintf("%.2f",$amount);

This is just one example of how a lot of things don't work as they would
seem to ...

third is along the same lines - w/respect to the values passed back to
Interchange in the ic_result hash, what do they have to be?  Better
question - where can I find them documented?

fourth is the tags - mv_order_route for example - it's set in several places
based on several criteria using the "construct" catalog type for example.
Where can I find complete info on what all of them are, how and where
they're being set, and how and where to set them, so I can use them
appropriately?

last is most of my coding is in C.  I would love to be able to to write
custom payment processing modules, etc. in C.  Can you give me an
example of how to do this?

A short example of a problem I ran into was with my payment processing
GlobalSub.  I had to know to set "&charge=custom my_sub_name" in
/var/lib/interchange/mycatalogname/etc/profiles.order, to set
"AllowGlobal mycatalogname" in /etc/interchange.cfg, and add a
"#include /usr/lib/interchange/eg/globalsub/mysubsourcefilename" at the
very end of /etc/interchange.cfg in the case of the RPM version of
Interchange 4.6.3 .  The file locations, etc. didn't correspond to the
docs or other code I found in the distribution.  It took a while to figure
out what was going on - I got a lot of "bad globalsub"s in the process.
Also I ended up having to add "use strict; use Vend::Util; ..." in order
to get the module to work at all.

>From the other posts I've seen a globalsub should compile and be
testable by removing the "GlobalSub <<EOS" and "EOS" lines from
the source file and running it.  This doesn't work for me as the .pm
modules needed to run it are not in my @INC.  I installed
Bundle::Interchange from CPAN but that did not make a difference
in this respect.

Hopefully other developers and/or users will have had similar problems
and be able and willing to help me.  The last post netted me one response
which was essentially to go figure it out myself.  That wasn't very
helpful or very much appreciated.

Sorry for the lengthy post again, but if anyone can help me out a bit
here I'd really appreciate it, and I'll be more than happy to contribute
anything I find as a result, and along the way, to anyone who wants
it, and to the appropriate place for it if someone can tell me where
that is.

- Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Heins" <mikeh@minivend.com>
To: <interchange-users@lists.akopia.com>
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 6:28 PM
Subject: Re: [ic] developers list


> Quoting Kris Dahl (kris@sledge-hammer.net):
> > Anyone aware of a mailing list for actual Interchange developers?  I.e.
not
> > people that build storefronts, but actually develop the product
Interchange?
> >
>
> There is no public developer list, but the people who develop Interchange
> (like me) keep an eye on this one. 8-)
>
> --
> Red Hat, Inc., 131 Willow Lane, Floor 2, Oxford, OH  45056
> phone +1.513.523.7621 fax 7501 <mheins@redhat.com>
>
> Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
> until you hear them speak. -- unknown
>
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