[ckan-discuss] Extension for generating US's /data.json standard

Mon Jun 3 12:41:31 BST 2013

On 31 May 2013 21:07, Joshua Tauberer <tauberer+consulting at govtrack.us> wrote:
> Here in the U.S. the new Open Data Memorandum requires agencies to publish
> data catalogs in JSON with a particular schema. [1]
>
> For HealthData.gov, the Drupal/CKAN data catalog for the U.S. Department of
> Health & Human Service, we created a CKAN extension to generate the
> /data.json file. In case anyone from other U.S. agencies is on this list, I
> wanted to share our github project for the extension:
>
> ckanext-datajson: https://github.com/HHS/ckanext-datajson
>

Hi,

I had a look at your extension.

some feedback this is assuming you are running CKAN 2.0 although I
think it would also be valid for 1.8

```
from ckan.lib.base import BaseController, render, config
from webhelpers.html import literal
from pylons import c, request, response
```

BaseController, render, literal, c, request (unused) - can all be
accessed via the plugins toolkit eg p.toolkit.render this will reduce
the likelyhood of breakage of you extension in later versions of ckan
due to code refactoring.

config should not be imported directly from pylons use the
IConfigurable interface to get/process the config this is the CKAN
supported way for extensions to access the config.

sadly response is not currently available in the toolkit this is
likely to be added somepoint soon, 2.1 if I get the time.

```
import ckan.model
from ckan.logic.action.get import current_package_list_with_resources
```

actions should be accessed via p.toolkit.get_action(<name>) so that
they can be overriden by extensions etc.

also if the contexted is None then model will be autopopulated by the
get_action() returned function so you do not import ckan.model
```
packages = current_package_list_with_resources( { "model": ckan.model}, {})
```
packages = current_package_list_with_resources(None, {})

> output: http://hub.healthdata.gov/data.json
>
> The mapping to the /data.json schema is specific to the way *we* store
> metadata in CKAN, but it at least may serve as a starting point for other
> CKAN sites. (e.g. see
> https://github.com/HHS/ckanext-datajson/blob/master/ckanext/datajson/plugin.py)
>
> [1] http://project-open-data.github.io/schema/
>
> Hope this is useful to others,
>
> --
> - Joshua Tauberer
> - http://razor.occams.info
>
>
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-- 
Toby Dacre

The Open Knowledge Foundation

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