NCIPServer and OpenSRF 2.5+

Thanks to Jason Boyer of Indiana Evergreen, it was brought to my attention that if you use the recommended Apache configuration with NCIPServer, Evergreen, and OpenSRF version 2.5.0 or later, NCIPServer crashes whenever you access its URL with the following error message:

Warning caught during route execution: Use of uninitialized value in scalar assignment at /usr/local/share/perl/5.22.1/OpenSRF/DomainObject/oilsMessage.pm line 246.

The reasons are a bit arbitrary and technical. The solution, however, is simple. To correct the situation, add the following directive inside the <Location /NCIP/> block in your eg_host.conf:

PerlSetEnv DANCER_ENVIRONMENT "production"

If you're upgrading to Evergreen 2.12 and OpenSRF 2.5, then you need to add the above to your configuration. Even if you are not planning an upgrade in the near future, adding that line will not hurt anything and it will help when you do eventually upgrade. Really, that directive should have been in the recommended configuration from the start, but was ignored owing to an oversight on my part.

The README has been updated to include the addition of the above line for configuration of both Apache 2.2 and Apache 2.4.

NCIPServer: better_abstraction branch merged into master

The Evergreen ILS driver for the NCIPServer software reached a milestone with the merge of the better_abstraction working branch into the master NCIPServer repository. (NCIPServer is a NCIP version 2.02 responder for processing ILL transactions.) This merge comes after many months of production use with the Massachusetts Commonwealth Catalog.

While this merge marks the end of development on the better_abstraction branch, it is not the end of the road for NCIPServer development with Evergreen. For one thing, NCIPServer needs documentation. The README is just a placeholder. Jason Boyer of Indiana is working on improvements to the request item response messages. Also, we've given up on any pretense of compatibility with Koha, so there is code to be deleted and examples to be updated. Finally, it would be nice to have an installation method better than just copying files into place and manually editing the configuration.

It is recommended that those using the better_abstraction branch in production switch to the master branch of the main repository.

Parameters Spreadsheet Utility Updated

Coincident with the move to github, the parameters.pl program in my Evergreen utilities suite received a code update. It now lists all of the fields from the circulation and hold matrix matchpoint tables. Prior to this update, it only output those fields used by MVLC. This change makes the script more useful to other Evergreen sites.

Evergreen Utilities Moved to github

I have made a clone of my Evergreen ILS Perl and SQL utilities on github. The new location is https://github.com/Dyrcona/evergreen_utilities. If you have been using these utilities, you may want to change your remotes to the new location.

I can't say how long the repository will be available at the old location, but as far as I know there are no plans to take it down any time soon.

I will have another post ready shortly that explains a recent update to the utility that builds a spreadsheet of your circulation and holds parameters.

JSONPrefs has a new home

If you have been using my JSONPrefs Perl module in your scripts, you should know that it now has a new home on Github.

It now resides at https://github.com/Dyrcona/JSONPrefs.

It will remain up at the old location, http://git.mvlcstaff.org/?p=jason/JSONPrefs.git;a=summary, for an undetermined amount of time.

Please note that the history of the master branch was completely rewritten for the new home. Everything was squashed into one commit with all previous history obliterated. Its requirements were also adjusted slightly. It now depends on the JSON Perl module and not JSON::XS.

Maybe JSONPrefs will make it to CPAN one day, but I really doubt it.

Evergreen 2.9.0 Upgrade Script Problem

Chris Sharp, of Georgia Pines, detected a problem with the upgrade from Evergreen 2.8.4 to 2.9.0.  It would fail because of a table being modified while data was being also being inserted into it.

This problem has been corrected and a new release uploaded to the public download server: http://evergreen-ils.org/egdownloads/

If you have already downloaded Evergreen 2.9.0 from that location and plan to upgrade, you must download it again or the upgrade will fail.

If you are planning to upgrade using git, the public repositories have been updated, so doing a git pull will get you the fixed upgrade script.

As the release manager for 2.9, I apologize for any inconvenience this causes.


In my defence, this is the largest upgrade script in Evergreen history so far.

Evergreen 2.9 Release Candidate Available

Thanks to the efforts of dozens of community members, Evergreen 2.9-rc release candidate was released today. Please download it and have a go at testing.

The release candidate contains fixes for the following bugs since the beta release:

Fines are not calculating until after circulation is closed

remove legacy_script_support from sample SIPServer configuration

authority data may be deleted during propagation with current values of authority.control_set_authority_field

WARNING for Penalty.pm during make install

The final release of Evergreen 2.9.0 is scheduled to coincide with the next monthly update releases of the 2.8 and 2.7 Evergreen series in two weeks on Wednesday, September 16, 2015.