.Detecting and fixing potential errors (e.g. broken
lines).
.Editing data.
.Generating or manually adding and saving to
database data that is not present in ISVU (otherpatron personal data, and data specific for the
libraries and Aleph) but is necessary for thefunctioning of the library.
.Export of data from ISVU2Aleph database toXML file.
.Uploading XML file to Aleph server, where it can
be imported into Aleph database through Aleph’s
Patron Loader Interface utility (PLIF).
C. Technologies used in development of ISVU2Aleph
ISVU2Aleph is a web application, written in the PHP
language.
It was decided to develop ISVU2Aleph as a web
application because of easy deployment – web browserand Internet connection are the only requirements andnothing has to be installed on the user’s computer. PHP –
scripting language originally designed to create dynamic
web content – has been chosen mainly because of its
flexibility and simplicity, although other advantages
exists, such as support for all major operating systems and
databases [12].
As a database, SQLite was used in the beginning, buwas later replaced with MySQL. ISVU2Aleph is installedon the web server running Debian GNU/Linux operating
system and Apache HTTP Server.
Finally, in the development of version 2.0,CodeIgniter, modern web application framework, writtenin PHP, was used. CodeIgniter supports Model-ViewController architectural pattern, provides Active Recorddatabase abstraction layer with support for all major
relational database systems, follows “Don’t repeatyourself” principle by offering numerous useful classes
and helpers and promotes “Convention oveconfiguration” concept by offering (but not enforcing) seof default configurations.
D. Development process
Development of ISVU2Aleph was done during the
summer of 2010. Two versions were developed in thatperiod.
In June 2010 functionality and workflow of the
application was defined by the manager of the Projectteam for implementation of Aleph. Version 1.0 wasdeveloped in June, in 19 hours of coding over three days,
and was written in pure PHP, without the use of aframework, by a single developer. It used SQLite databaseas a backend. It included all the aforementioned features,with the exception of uploading XML file to Aleph server
Coding style was purely procedural, with PHP code and
SQL queries embedded in the HTML code (the structure
is identical to the one shown in Fig. 2).