Re: [WWdevel] links to problem libraries

[Sam H. <sh...@ma...>]

On Jan 16, 2006, at 21:32, Michael Gage wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've had some difficulties describing the process of adding new  
> problem libraries to other webwork system admins.
> The problem is retroactively adding links to the problem libraries  
> from the templates files of the existing courses.
>
> For new courses, I simply add the links to the modelCourse and copy  
> that whenever I make a new course.
> For the old courses I have written a script, but it's not that  
> robust or portable.
>
> The nationalLibrary  (or database_problib or whatever name you wish  
> to use) automatically adds a link if its missing.
>
> I was thinking of adding some information to global.conf, so that  
> something similar could be done with the other problem libraries.   
> I'd replace
>
> $courseFiles{problibs}    = {
> 	rochesterLibrary => "Rochester",
> 	rochester_grade8Library =>"Rochester grade 8",
> 	asuLibrary       => "Arizona State",
> 	dcdsLibrary      => "Detroit CDS",
> 	dartmouthLibrary => "Dartmouth",
> 	indianaLibrary   => "Indiana",
> 	nauLibrary       => "Northern Arizona",
> 	osuLibrary       => "Ohio State",	
>    capaLibrary      => "CAPA",
>    unionLibrary     =>  "Union",
>    tcnjLibrary      => "TCNJ"
> };
>
>
> by
>
> $courseFiles{problibs}    = {
> 	rochesterLibrary => { name => "Rochester", path=> '/ww/webwork/ 
> rochester_problib'},
> 	rochester_grade8Library =>{name=> "Rochester grade 8", path => '/ 
> ww/webwork/rochester8thgrade_problib'},
> ... etc.
> };
>
> With this structure we could later add more information about each  
> library if that was needed.
>
>
>
> Does anyone see downsides to this?  Should we just encourage the  
> use of scripts, and perhaps write some robust ones?
> Does anyone have better/different ideas about this?

Hi Mike,

This looks good to me. I'm for courses being "self-healing" in some  
ways. For example, creating temp directories as needed. I don't see a  
problem with auto-creating symlinks, as long as we do it securely and  
are careful not to overwrite existing files/symlinks.

At some point we might want to stop using symlinks to get to problem  
libraries, and instead access them directly, and the $courseFiles 
{problibs} format you propose allows for that.

The only downside I can think of is that some courses might want to  
"opt out" of access to problem libraries, perhaps to speed up  
traversal of the templates directory. But this could be achieved by  
adding "delete $courseFiles{problibs}{some_problib}" to that course's  
course.conf.

When we implement this, we should use the same symlink-generating  
code for both the regular problem libraries and the database problem  
library, if possible.
-sam