Management and XML Functions

SSL is the chosen mechanism for connecting and maintaining a session between a client and a ExerTran server, see this and follwoing paragraphs. SSL requires a certificate to be sent from the server to the client to identify the server when a session is being established. A SSL certificate can be issued by an appropriate authority, if it is desired to be able to firmly identify a server. However, where this is not necessary as in with ExerTran, then a certificate can be generated locally: clicking on this function generates a certificated based on information stored in an initilisation parameter file specific to the certificate generation. This file needs to be defined during system installation. It should be noted that certificates generally become out of data after 6 months, when messages to this effect are displayed during user login. Thus this function can be used to generate a new updated certificate; it is when doing this that the function is necessary as creating a new certificate fails if the current certificate is not removed first.

This function is used prior to the function when updating an out-of-date certificate.

This function is useful after new topics and questions have been added to the system in getting the new topics and questions displayed. The system reads the question list from the database, when it is first needed, e.g. when a student user logs in, and stores the object holding the topics and questions as an application attribute, see the Section called Display logged in user details! section, with attribute name "questionList". Subsequent references to the question list, e.g. by another student logging in, refer to the stored object. After the attribute has been created, additions to the topics and questions will not affect the stored list in the application attribute, and the changes to the list will not become visible until the next time the system is shutdown and restarted, when the application-pool is cleared. An alternative to waiting until this happens or to performing a shutdown and restart operation, is clicking on this link, which removes the attribute "questionList" forcing the topics and questions to be read from the database the next time it is needed, and thus displaying the newly added topics and questions.

This allows an XML file to be displayed, using an XSL file to define the formating of the XML. Clicking on this link displays a file selection form (see Figure 9 in the Section called Load-from-file Function). This allows a directory to be found and opened and an XML file (".xml" file extension) to be selected for display. Clicking on the "select xml file" link opens another file selectioon form to select the XSL file (".xsl" file extension) to be used to define the output format. This command is useful when generating questions automatically from xml definitions, when the different ouput forms ("jsp", "java", etc) can be viewed.

This allows an XML file to be displayed in its entirety without the need for an XSL file. It also allows for the XML to be validated against its DTD. Clicking on this link puts up a file selection form (see Figure 9 in the Section called Load-from-file Function), which allows a directory to be found and opened and an XML file (".xml" file extension) to be selected for display. A checkbox is provided to select for validation.

This allows the XML file describing a database table to be displayed in its entirety without the need for an XSL file. It also checks the XML against its DTD. Clicking on this link puts up a file selection form (see Figure 9 in the Section called Load-from-file Function), which allows the database XML file directory (normally ".../WEB-INF/xml") to be found and opened and an XML file (".xml" file extension) to be selected for display. The display is slightly different to that obtained with the function.

This function allows an xml file defining a question or set of questions to be parsed and the various output files to be generated. Clicking on this link puts up a file selection form (see Figure 9 in the Section called Load-from-file Function), which allows a directory to be found and opened and the XML file (".xml" file extension) defining the questions to be selected for analysis. Subsequent displays allow the selection of the XSL files that allow the generation of the "jsp", the "java", and the "question record" files that are produced from the single XML description file. Details of this process are described in the chapter called Question Generation. Default XSL files should be displayed automatically for each output type, but alternatives may be selected.

Closes the sub-system, and re-displays the main manager page.