Exporting jobs and transformations to the .zip files (Simple)

This recipe guides you through exporting the structure and content of your PDI repository using the PDI command-line tools. The first trivial use of this option is for something such as the backup of our job. The job and all of its dependencies will be exported to a ZIP file that we can, for example, move to another location for archiving. But at the end, what's the funny part of all of this? The job that you exported in your .zip archive starts directly from the exported archive file. For details about how to start a job from an archive file, follow what we explained in the recipe Executing PDI jobs packaged in archive files (Intermediate). This recipe will work the same for both Kitchen and Pan.

Getting ready

To get ready for this recipe, you need to check that the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set properly and then configure your environment variables so that the Kitchen script can start from anywhere without specifying the complete path to your PDI home directory. For details about these checks, refer to the recipe Executing PDI jobs from a filesystem (Simple).

How to do it...

To dump the jobs stored in a PDI repository to an archive file, use the following steps:

1. Dumping a job stored in a repository, either authenticated or not, is an easy thing. To try the following examples, use the filesystem repository we defined during the recipe Executing PDI jobs from the repository (Simple).

2. To export a job and all of its dependencies, we need to use the export argument followed by the base name of the .zip archive file that we want to create. Remember that you don't need to specify any extension for the exported file because it will get attached automatically.

3. This kind of repository is unauthenticated, but you can do exactly the same things using an authenticated repository by specifying the username and password to connect to the repository.

4. To export the job export-job from the samples3 repository on Linux/Mac, type the following command:

   $ kitchen.sh -rep:sample3 -job:export-job -export:sample-export
   

5. To export the job export-job from the samples3 repository on Windows, type the following command:

   C:\temp\samples>Kitchen.bat /rep:sample3 /job:export-job /export:sample-export
   

To dump the jobs stored in the filesystem to an archive file, use the following steps:

1. You can do the same things to export jobs stored in the plain filesystem; in this case, the job must specify the files related to the job that is to be exported:

   • Using the file argument and giving the complete path to the job file in the filesystem

   • Using the file and dir arguments together

2. For details about the usage of these arguments, see the recipe Executing PDI jobs from a filesystem (Simple). Let's go to the directory <books_samples>/sample1.

3. To try to export all of the files related to the export-job.kjb job in Windows, type the following command:

   kitchen.sh -file:./export-job.kjb -export:sample-export
   

4. To try to export all of the files related to the export-job.kjb job in Linux/Mac, type the following command:

   C:\temp\samples>Kitchen.bat /file:./export-job.kjb /export:sample-export
   

How it works...

There is no magic behind the creation of the archive containing our job and all of its referenced files of jobs and transformations. Everything is always made using the Apache VFS library to let PDI create the exported .zip archive file very easily. You can find more details about the Apache VFS library and how it works on the Apache website at http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-vfs.

There's more...

Just a few words on some simple hints that can help you prevent unexpected behavior from the application.

Be careful when you are working with input steps that take an input as a set of files through a list. In our sample transformation, this is the case with the TextInput step. This step reads the file containing the customer dataset and sends the dataset into the transformation flow. All of these steps take as input a set of files to process. It could happen very easily that you forget an empty line at the very end of that file list as shown in the following screenshot:

PDI does not give you an error while designing your transformation in Spoon if you leave the unused line highlighted in the preceding screenshot blank. But you could get into trouble if you try to export the job that uses that transformation by preventing the successful export of the job. So remember to check for this; and if these situations do exist, remember to clean it up.