== caTissue Bulk Operations ==

There is a reasonably detailed description of the bulk operation process in the user manual accessible from the following page:[[BR]]
[http://cvswiki1.wustl.edu/nagarajanwiki/ReleaseNotes_v11p5.1.RC3][[BR]]
The manual is entitled caTissue_Suite_User_Manual_v11p5.doc and the relevant chapter is Chapter 12.

Or click on this link and follow your nose:[[BR]]
http://cvswiki1.wustl.edu/nagarajanwiki/ReleaseNotes_v11p5.1.RC3?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=caTissue_Suite_User_Manual_v11p5.doc

I'm not really sure how uptodate this user manual is, compared with what may be available for v1.2.

The following are very high level points. I'll expand upon them as I learn more. But feel free to add/make changes, please.

It is my understanding that bulk operations can be invoked either from the caTissue web interface or from the command line. In both cases the invocation is just a trigger mechanism. A piece of caTissue functionality then picks up a local CSV file (a file with a list of comma separated values) that depicts all the changes you want to make; ie: these are the bulk part of the operation. There is another file (the template file) in XML format that in its entirety does three things:

  * Describes the comma separated file
  * Describes the caTissue domain objects that the changes will apply to. Note the plural: domain objects. It could be one, but it can be many.
  * Connects the csv format to the domain objects, so basically what change goes where and to what.

Both files are sent to the caTissue application for processing.

=== Template File ===
  * Is there an XML schema file for this?
  * It seems to me (as per the client API) there is a heavy premium on knowing how the domain objects fit together.

=== CSV File ===
I haven't seen any other formats. Well, it's unlikely there are any given the complication off designing a Mapping File. If we are talking of driving this process via an Excel spreadsheet, we would need some way of converting a spreadsheet into an csv file.

Do we have an idea of the size of a file?...
  * How many lines?
  * How many values per line?

=== Transactions Again ===
What can we assume about a bulk operation:
  * One line within the csv file = one transaction?
  * The whole csv file = one transaction?