Identifying Files (Itn06)

When using AstroGrid components, you will sometimes need to specify where to find a file, or where to send it.

There are several ways of doing this, depending on where that file is, and whether you intend to read from it, or write to it.

This page is for Itn06 software, see here for Itn05. For a technical discussion, see ResolvingIVORNs and LocatingVOThings

URLs

Just type in the URL of the file. eg entering http://twmbarlwm.star.le.ac.uk:8080/astrogrid-pal-SNAPSHOT/adql/example-circle-adql-v0.5.xml as a source will locate that example file, just like a browser.

Generally speaking URLs are only useful for giving as sources. For targets, the service must have write access to the URL which is rare.

IVORNs

You can use IVORNs to describe files that are stored in places that are in the Registry. They are split into two parts:

   ivo://storagepoint/key#path/to/file.ext
    \-------------------/ \--------------/
          Store               Path

The 'Store' is a reference to the server that manages the files. The Path is where to find the file on that store.

For example:

ivo://org.astrogrid.itn05/myspace#frog/query/pleiadescircl.xml

Refers to the myspace file manager used in the Itn05 deployment, and the file pleiadescircl.xml in directory frog/query/

Myspace

For files that are stored on a MySpace manager, you just give the path in myspace, ie:

myspace://path/to/file.ext

Homespace

(TBD)

Mail

Mail only works to send files to - ie as a target - and if the server has an smtp email server available that it can use to transport the email.

For example:

mailto:astrogrid@roe.ac.uk

-- MartinHill - 08 Jul 2004