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Previously there were the following ways to access the socket server:
There was no package for a client written in C to interface to the server.
This gap has now been filled with a new package called AceConn. This is a small library of C routines enabling a C based client to interface to the server. The main components of the interface are:
The interface sends text commands just as the user would type in when using saceclient and then returns the reply from the server in a buffer. Usually this reply is text but it could be an image as produced by some of the gif subcommands. The client must parse the returned data itself.
Each request will wait for a client specified number of seconds before timing out. The timeout may be set to zero for the client never to timeout, or negative to reset to the default timeout (120 seconds). This allows the client code to retain control of how long it remains blocked waiting for a request.
If a client makes a request that produces a very large reply, the server returns the reply in slices so that other requests from other clients can also be processed. The AceConnRequest() call automatically batches up these requests into a single reply. While this is convenient you should be aware that this can lead to the client using up considerable amounts of memory for large requests.
You can see further documentation by downloading the Ace-Conn package from the acedb website.
Kemin Zhou formerly of Affymetrix has contributed a Java package for accessing data from the socket server. You can download the package from the acedb web site: Java-Zhou package
Kemin's description:
"This simple package is meant to give a basic interface to ACEDB. You can view the documentation with webbrowser
Type netscape index.html then you are there.
You need to put the acedb directory in your CLASSPATH Or just use the ace.jar file. In you java program say import acedb.*;
You have to set up your own Acedb and Saceserver, that is not difficult.
This package is to be used by programers who knows both Java and ACEDB."
It is not possible to use the "readmodels" command from the client. The client/server interface does not support the level of interaction required for this operation currently.
The code did not explicitly test for the system file "wspec/database.wrm" with the result that an obscure error message was displayed some way into program initialisation. Now if the file is missing an error message issued and the program exits.
Acedb sometimes hung when the print dialog was displayed, this is now fixed.
An obscure bug in the display of dna within the fmap meant that if you zoomed in until there should be just two bases per line, only one was shown ! This is now fixed.
Apologies, once again there was no build this month due to the major SMap development work.