Retrieving caDSR Content

CDE Browser

The CDE Browser seach features provide the means to search for and retrieve CDEs, to put CDEs into a shopping cart, and to export them for download in an MS Excel or and XML document. The export contains the essential attributes of data elements, such as the Data Element Concept (DEC), the reference to the Object Class and Property, and the Value Domain (VD). If the Value Domain is enumerated, the download includes the Permissible Values.

Form Builder

Form Builder exports in MS Excel format and includes all the associated questions and answer lists, reference to the CDE, and limited form metadata such as the form name and section headings. All other form metadata such as attributes describing form behavior, including skip patterns, repeating groups, and default values, is available through the caDSR API.

caDSR API

Two "views" of caDSR content are provided via the caDSR API, both generated by the caCORE SDK. Two domain models of caDSR were developed: one representing 11179 administered items, the other representing content as part of a UML class diagram. The caDSR API was created using the caCORE SDK, therefore multiple means provide programmatic access to content.

caCORE java-based clients communicate with caDSR via the Java API which contains the caDSR and UMLProject domain objects provided in the caCORE client.jar file. Developers can download the caDSR client.jar file and directly use its packages in their programs. Each Java bean object class in the caCORE caDSR and UMLProject domain packages acts as its own search criteria object and provides methods for the retrieval of attributes and related domain objects.

Non-Java based applications can communicate via SOAP services or by using the caDSR HTTP API, and receive objects as XML. The Domain Class Browser provides a convenient way to perform HTTP queries. By default it returns HTML objects, but the generated query can be edited to return the XML object by simply changing the "...//GetHTML?query=..." to "...//GetXML?query=..." in the results. All caDSR and UMLProject objects can be transformed into XML, and XSL/XSLT is used to present data in documents, web pages or other interfaces. The caDSR API is a common artifact for all caCORE SDK generated systems.

Semantic Integration The Semantic Integration Workbench (SIW) is a tool in the caCORE toolset that assists users in adding consistent metadata to their UML model, or verifying consistency, by matching their concepts with similar items from the NCI Thesaurus. The supports producing semantically integrated systems, with all exposed API elements having runtime accessible metadata that defines the meaning of the elements.

Programming Interfaces

The documentation for the caDSR APIs is found in the caDSR 4.0 Technical Guide.

Dynamic access to the caDSR is available through a Java API that emulates the features of the CDE Browser. Detailed modeling information for the caDSR Java API can be found in the caDSR 4.0 Technical Guide. The caCORE Java API Tutorial developed by one of the caDSR user groups details the use of the API for querying caDSR Content.

The caDSR domain model is registered in the caDSR and can be viewed using the UML Model Browser or the CDE Browser. In the UML Model Browser, the caDSR UML Model can be found by searching for the "caCORE" project, "caDSR" sub-project. In the CDE Browser, open the caCORE Context, Classification Scheme "caCORE" and the "caDSR" domain model.

There are also two batch processing modes for import and export of Administered Components with the caDSR. Import formats supported are Microsoft Excel and UML Class diagrams. A customized Excel spreadsheet is provided by CBIIT to Context owners for imports. UML Models are translated by custom CBIIT programs whereby UML classes are mapped to caDSR Data Element Concepts and UML Class attributes are mapped to caDSR Data Elements. Export formats supported are Microsoft Excel and XML, are available via the CDE Browser. The DTD for the CDE Browser is used to capture and validate the caDSR components which are then batch loaded into the caDSR by CBIIT database administrators.