Oracle MDS Demo Application

I recently published a post in which I explain the basics of working with the Oracle MDS repository. In this post I will explain how to create an XML document inside the MDS repository and then read it back. You can download the Eclipse project here.

For this, we will use the Database repository type, as it is the most commonly used in a production system. To connect to a MDS database repository, first we need to create the database repository schema. To do this, we will use the Repository Creation Utility from Oracle (RCU), available for download here. Any version starting with 11.1.1.2.0 should work with this sample. After downloading the RCU, create a new MDS schema as shown below:

We only need to select the Metadata Services option and just go Next to set the password and then Finish to create the schema.

Now that we have a database schema, we need to prepare the MDS configuration file. This file is commonly named adf-config.xml and usually it's the default ADF configuration file, where MDS repository information is stored. The MDS framework knows how to parse this file and extract the required configuration. You can look into the provided sample, at the <mds:metadata-store> element, to change the database connection parameters (jdbc-userid, jdbc-password, jdbc-url and partition-name). The database connection will be made to the Metadata Services schema created with the RCU above.

The attached demo application connects to the database repository, creates  a new XML document with two nodes (item1 and item2), adds some text data to the nodes, stores the XML document inside the MDS repository as /upload/sampledoc.xml and then reads it back and outputs it to the System.out stream.

The project is an Eclipse project and you can open it straight away. I didn't create a JDeveloper project because I wanted to emphasize the fact that MDS can be used in any application, not just Oracle or ADF applications.

In order to compile the project, you need to add the required jar files from an Oracle Middleware installation, to the project lib folder. If you don't want to install a separate middleware, you cand install a JDeveloper that also includes a middlware home. There is also a readme.txt file inside the project lib folder that describes where the jar files are located. You need the following libraries to compile and run the project:

• adflogginghandler.jar
• adf-share-base.jar
• adf-share-support.jar
• cache.jar
• dms.jar
• mdsrt.jar
• ojdbc6.jar
• ojdl.jar
• oracle.ucp_11.1.0.jar
• share.jar
• xmlef.jar
• xmlparserv2.jar

Except ojdbc6.jar, you can find them in your Oracle middleware installation, usually in the <MIDDLEWARE_HOME>/oracle_common/modules folder. You can get the ojdbc6.jar file from the <MIDDLEWARE_HOME>/wlserver_10.3/server/lib folder.


After successfully compiling the project and changing the database connection parameters inside the adf-config.xml file, run the com.oraclemw.mds.test.MDSDemo class.