Native XML Export skipping submission files in OJS 3.4.0.x

[KBodarwe]

Hello,
I have been working on a project for quite some time now, that tries to export Articles including their metadata, and all attached discussions and reviews to XML format for long time data storage.

I have had some conversations around this topic in the forum including:

OJS 3.3 registering additional filters for XML Export

Hello, as discussed over on github: Extend native import/export plugin to include additional entities · Issue #3261 · pkp/pkp-lib · GitHub I am currently looking for a way to export single articles from OJS, including all their metadata, files, discussions, reviews etc. A few details on the project: We’re trying to establish some kind of long term storage for OJS articles. Since the requirements of the project are out of my hand, this means storage as XML, either with base64 encoded files, o…

The “solution” I have found that works for my project is an external python script, that prompts the XML export via command line, then directly accesses the database and opens the exported XML and enriches it with the reviews/discussions data. This works fine, as the Native XML exports all submission files, and I can refer to a submission file id when adding the discussions.

It’s crude but it works for what we need. I have planned to make it a proper plugin in the future.

Now when testing the script with OJS Version 3.4.0-3 I have encountered this message:

The export completed successfully.

Warnings encountered:
1.Submission
- The submission file 16 was skipped because it is attached to a record that will not be imported, such as a review assignment or discussion.
- The submission file 15 was skipped because it is attached to a record that will not be imported, such as a review assignment or discussion.

Which is problematic for my use case.
I can see the logic of omitting these files in an export that can’t otherwise use them, but for my specific usecase this is very bad.

Is there a way to “not skip” the submission files, from CLI? Maybe some kind of option?

Any other way to get these additional files exported?

Thank you very much!
Best regards,
Karl-Arnold Bodarwé

[asmecher]

This doesn’t directly answer your question, but it’s somewhat relevant: Extend native import/export plugin to include additional entities · Issue #3261 · pkp/pkp-lib · GitHub

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[KBodarwe]

Hello Alec,
Yup I’m aware of that issue, and have commented on it before. I forgot linking it above.

It is what eventually led me down the road of creating an external script, rather than trying to figure out a plugin, as I wasn’t quite ready to fully dive into the code in PHP.

The updates on 3.4 kind of made it worse now, but I understand where there are coming from, seeing that the submission files would be redundant without any attached data.

best regards,
Karl-Arnold Bodarwé