IBM Streams 4.2
Creating toolkits
A toolkit is created by organizing all the artifacts that are related to operators (composite and primitive) and functions (native or SPL) into namespace directories. Then, running the spl-make-toolkit program to index the toolkit.
- Toolkit information model file
The toolkit information model is an optional file called info.xml. It contains the name, description, and version information about the toolkit. It also contains any dependencies that might exist on other toolkits, in the form of a list of toolkit names and versions or range of versions required. - Creating toolkit artifacts for use on multiple platforms
IBM Streams supports a varied set of hardware architectures and Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the Community Enterprise Operating System (CentOS), or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). If you plan to deploy a toolkit on multiple platforms, you can create toolkit artifacts that simplify the management of the various C++ libraries. These examples show how to maintain a common infrastructure that works across multiple Linux distributions and hardware platforms. - Mixed-mode SPL/Perl sources
You often must parameterize application composition when you create parallel subgraphs, conditional segments, and variable length pipelines. The SPL compiler provides a Perl-based preprocessor for this purpose. SPL files that are authored with the preprocessor directives are named with the .splmm extension and are called mixed-mode SPL programs. - Globalizing a toolkit
You can load and format string resources for different locales using the tools that are provided. - Versioning guidelines
Use a version scheme for toolkits that you develop. The toolkit version might be synced up with the version of a wrapped library, or it might depend on the feature set provided by the toolkit. - Packaging a toolkit for redistribution
You package a toolkit to allow other SPL application developers to access the operators and functions that are defined in the toolkit. - Installing a toolkit
You install SPL toolkits by copying the toolkit directory to a location on a file system accessible to where IBM Streams is installed. - Directing the compiler to the toolkit directory
To use the operators and functions that are defined in a toolkit, you first need to point the SPL compiler to the toolkit root directory. - Documenting your SPL toolkits
You can use SPLDOC markup and the spl-make-doc command to generate rich text documentation for your SPL toolkits.
Parent topic: Developing toolkits