Connectors are at the core of RSSBus. Connectors provide the means to connect
to various data sources and convert their output to a simple name/value pairs used by RSSBus. From software applications to web sources to databases, to the
filesystem or other intranet resources, connectors provide the means to connect
your data.
Each RSSBus Connector consists of a bundle of operations for working with the resource.
Operations can be thought of as a type of action. For example,
using the sqlListTables operation, RSSBus will connect to an instance of SQL server
and retrieve a list of the tables available to the specified user. Likewise
using excelGetRange from ExcelOps would allow you to retrieve a range of data from
an
Excel spreadsheet.
Connectors are not limited to retrieving data. Operations like smtpSendEmail
for example enable RSSBus to push data and send emails.
A feed is still produced
from this operation, in this case the results of each of the email transmissions.
Technical Details
RSSBus Connectors are software libraries that implement one or more related RSSBus Operations. Operations retrieve and convert data of from various sources into Feeds.
The input to an operation is an Item, represented as a set of parameters, or attributes, normally
provided through standard HTTP mechanisms such as the URL query string and/or form
(www-urlencoded) POST data. The operation generates a Feed based on values provided in the input Item.
Each operation is configured to receive input at one or more web locations (HTTP
endpoints). The RSSBus Engine is responsible for reading the HTTP input, converting
it into a form suitable for operation input, passing the input to the operation,
invoking the operation logic, and then formatting (or serializing) the result as a Feed.
The connectors that come installed with RSSBus can be called as is,
or combined with your own logic (using a script) to produce feeds.
What Connectors are Included?
RSSBus comes prepackaged with an extensible set of connectors, and the programming
interface is simple and fully open so you can easily add your own custom connectors.
Here is are just a few RSSBus connectors currently available:
CsvOps: operations for managing delimited record
files.
ExcelOps: operations that read and write data to
Excel spreadsheets.
FileOps: operations for managing files and directories.
FtpOps: operations for transferring files to and
from FTP servers.
GcalOps: operations that provide access to Google
calendar.
GsheetOps: operations that provide access to Google
spreadsheets.
ImapOps: operations for receiving email messages
from IMAP mail servers.
LdapOps: operations for connecting to LDAP directories.
NntpOps: operations for reading and posting newsgroup
articles.
OfxOps: operations for accessing bank accounts
and financial services.
OracleOps: operations for accessing Oracle databases.
PopOps: operations for receiving email messages
from POP servers.
SqlOps: operations for connecting to SQL Server
databases.
SysOps: operations for system management (processes,
memory, etc..).
TsvOps: operations for managing simple tab-separated
file databases.
XmlOps: operations that process XML files.
and more ...
Building New Connectors
RSSBus was designed to be easily extensible. To take full advantage of RSSBus,
developers are encouraged to build new Connectors for accessing data. For
more information about extending RSSBus with new Connectors, please review the RSSBus Feed Server Users
Guide.
