Command line programs run in a terminal window (e.g. DOS). In Windows these files usually have the extension .exe (e.g. rdmp.exe), in Linux these often have no extension (e.g. rdmp).
The binaries (runnable files) for the RDMP command line are included in the Releases section of GitHub. Download and unzip the file that matches your operating system e.g. rdmp-cli-win-x64.zip for Windows or rdmp-cli-linux-x64.zip for linux.
Unzip the package and edit Databases.yaml so that it points to your RDMP databases. If you do not have any platform databases yet then you can run ./rdmp install "(localdb)\MSSQLLocalDB" TEST_ -e (use your own server name and/or different prefix if desired).
Open a command prompt in the folder and run ./rdmp list Catalogue. You should see a list of example catalogues. For example:
PS C:\Users\44777\Downloads\rdmp-7.0.20-cli-win-x64> ./rdmp list Catalogue
2022-09-20 12:12:30.9689 INFO Dotnet Version:6.0.8 .
2022-09-20 12:12:30.9870 INFO RDMP Version:7.0.20.0 .
2022-09-20 12:12:32.6898 TRACE Running Command 'ExecuteCommandList' .
1:Biochemistry
2:Demography
3:Prescribing
4:HospitalAdmissions
5:vConditions
6:vOperations
The rdmp program allows command line execution of all major engines in RDMP (Caching / Data Load / Cohort Creation / Extraction and Release). To access the CLI command line help system run:
rdmp --help
For help on each engine (verb) on the command line enter the verb (listed by the main --help command) followed by --help e.g.:
rdmp dle --help
When performing an operation in the RDMP client application (e.g. releasing a dataset) you can instead select 'Copy Run Command To Clipboard'. This will generate a CLI command that will perform the current action (e.g. extract [Project] X using Pipeline Y). This can be helpful for scheduling long running tasks etc.
To install an instance of the RDMP platform databases from the command line use the command:
rdmp install localhost\sqlexpress RDMP_
Insert your sql server's name in place of localhost\sqlexpress. Note that some terminals require an esacpe for \ e.g. enter localhost\\sqlexpress
To see all the available options (including dropping existing databases, creating example datasets etc) run:
rdmp install --help
Once setup edit Databases.yaml to reference the tables created e.g.
CatalogueConnectionString: Server=<yourserver>;Database=RDMP_Catalogue;Trusted_Connection=True;
DataExportConnectionString: Server=<yourserver>;Database=RDMP_DataExport;Trusted_Connection=True;
In addition to running engines, many commands can be run from the CLI. To see what commands are available use
./rdmp ListSupportedCommands
Listing commands requires valid connection settings, see installation
For example you can view a list of what Catalogues you have by running:
./rdmp list Catalogue
Lists all Catalogues in RDMP along with their IDs
To see the arguments of a command use 'describe' e.g.:
./rdmp describe confirmlogs
Displays help for the command 'ConfirmLogs'
Some commands require specifying a database (e.g. CreateNewCatalogueByImportingFile). The following table shows the syntax for such parameters
| Parameter Type | Syntax |
|---|---|
| values | For value types simply enter the value (e.g. 8). If text has spaces then wrap it in double quotes e.g. "My cool Catalogue" |
| Database Objects (e.g. Catalogue) | Rdmp objects can be specified by ID (e.g. Catalogue:2) or by name using wild cards (e.g. Catalogue:*bioch*). If a command accepts multiple objects you can specify a pattern (e.g. Catalogue:intern* would match all Catalogues starting with the word "intern". Entering the Type name alone will return all objects (e.g. Catalogue) |
| DiscoveredDatabase | To specify a database use the syntax "DatabaseType:{DatabaseType}:[Name:{DatabaseName}:]{ConnectionString}" e.g. "DatabaseType:MicrosoftSQLServer:Name:MyDb:Server=localhost\sqlexpress;Trusted_Connection=True;"* |
| DiscoveredTable | To specify a table use the syntax "Table:{TableName}:[Schema:{SchemaIfAny}:][IsView:{True/False}]:DatabaseType:{DatabaseType}:Name:{DatabaseName}:{ConnectionString}" e.g. "Table:v_cool:Schema:dbo:IsView:True:DatabaseType:MicrosoftSQLServer:Name:MyDb:Server=localhost\sqlexpress;Trusted_Connection=True;"* |
| Null | If a parameter is optional then you can enter the word Null to ignore it |
* If your command line requires you to escape back slashes then ensure you do so if your server name includes one
See the technical documentation for how this parsing occurs in code.
You can access an interactive terminal similar to the RDMP gui client by running:
rdmp gui
RDMP Terminal.Gui running in Powershell
You can run a sequence of commands all at once by using the -f option of RDMP command line:
./rdmp -f Z:\Repos\RDMP\scripts\create_list_destroy_catalogue.yaml
Run all commands in the file 'create_list_destroy_catalogue.yaml'
For a selection of example scripts see the scripts folder