The Archive Module

During integration week for Sakai 2.3, the import code was moved into the Sakai trunk from contrib, where it had been under development. It was decided that the appropriate place for it to live would be within the existing archive module. The existing archive code includes the ArchiveService which has been used for importing and exporting in Sakai, including handling the archives in "Import from file."

The long-range plan is for Sakai to support the IMS Common Cartridge specification natively for both importing and exporting. The archive module will gradually acquire and consolidate all these capabilities, but for now it contains two distinct pieces: the original archive service, and the new import architecture. This document exclusively deals with the latter portion of this module.

The import side of things consists of five directories: import-api, import-impl, import-parsers, import-handlers, and import-pack. We will discuss each of these in turn, but first let us address a high-level overview of the approach to archive importing.