Chapter 08: Create Some Test Data
Overview
Usually, data is inputted to ICAT (ingested) from automated scripts running at the scientific facility which is running the instance of ICAT. The scripts extract metadata from the facility booking system, the experimental equipment control systems and the resulting data files and load it into ICAT for cataloging and indexing using one of the APIs - ReST or SOAP - along with the location of the data files. Setting all this up is beyond the scope of this tutorial. Fortunately, there is a script which will create test data - much like the Lorum Ipsum text generators used by web developers. The script is written for a recent version of the Ruby programming language so we need to install this first.
Install new Ruby version
The Ruby version in the tutorial system is too old for the data creation script. Fortunately, we can easily build and install a more up to date version using the Ruby Version Manager (RVM). First we must install the dependencies:
sudo yum install patch libyaml-devel glibc-headers autoconf gcc-c++ glibc-devel patch readline-devel zlib-devel libffi-devel openssl-devel automake libtool bison sqlite-devel
Next we install the Ruby Version Managaer (rvm) and use it to download and install a recent version of Ruby (2.3.1) in userspace. Finally, we use gem - the Ruby package manager - to install some dependencies for our test data generator script.
curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash
source $HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm
rvm install 2.3.1
rvm use 2.3.1 --default
gem install faker rest-client
Create and load some test data
Download the test data generator script:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/icatproject/topcat/master/tools/lorum_facility_generator.rb
Change the hard-coded root password in the script: on the line containing the string password, find and replace root with pw. You could do this in your favourite editor or use the sed one-liner below. If you use an editor, note that we save the script under a new name: test_data_generator.rb.
sed -e '/password/ s/root/pw/g' lorum_facility_generator.rb > test_data_generator.rb
Run the data creation script
ruby test_data_generator.rb