#1 Change format of cmt_data.dat to XML

[Rick Hall]

The cmt_data.dat file is used to record batch job status by the Offline Automated Batch Blocking Algorithm (OABA, aka Batch Automated Batch Blocking Algorithm, or BABA). The format is currently binary; i.e. Java objects are serialized into the file. This makes it inconvenient for debugging, since it the file contents can't be read easily.

Java objects can be serialized in XML format, or better yet, their persistent instance can be captured as (String) properties that can be written out as an XML tree. This would be much more informative for debugging or postmortem analysis of failed jobs.

[Rick Hall]

Example of current cmt_data file (Java serialized objects)