[ic] Information Finding Tips for Interchange

[John Young]

Following are some information finding tips that I hope
are useful to people with questions about Interchange.
This is from the Solaris/Linux perspective; however,
much of it applies to alternate platforms as well.  The
tips are in a loose order of sophistication (I think).
Many of you know all this, but perhaps one or two of
the points will help one or two people out there.


* Read files in uppercase letters in the top level
  directory of the distribution (README, WHATSNEW, ...).

* Consider purchasing support or the nice bundled
  solution from Redhat (or support from any of the
  consultants on the interchange-users mail list) if
  you are serious about a sophisticated e-commerce site,
  but are non-technical and lacking the significant time
  to learn all of this.

* Search the e-mail list archive:
    http://interchange.redhat.com/cgi-bin/ic/mail_archive.html

* Check out:
    http://interchangeville.com/forum/index.php

* Download the 9 or so documentation files from:
    http://interchange.redhat.com/cgi-bin/ic/dev-4.8/index.html
  I prefer the ASCII text files (.txt), but you can
  download PDF or HTML if you really, really wish.
  If you get the txt files, place them in a directory
  by themselves.  Read them when you have time, AND
  when you have a question about a particular command,
  function, or concept, grep on the files:
    grep -i pragma * (shows you what files in which to look)

* Try working through the tutorial (iccattut in the
  files above).

* Also note the man pages, which might be in your
  MANPATH and/or in:
    /usr/local/interchange/docs/

* Take a look at the contents of your log files, usually
  something like:
    /usr/local/interchange/error.log  (or perhaps ~interch/error.log)
    /var/interchange/catalogname/logs/
  and *especially* your web logs, which might be in a
  place like:
    /var/log/httpd/
    /opt/apache/logs/

* For weird crashes when starting, maybe try:
    strace commandname (on Linux - see man page)
    truss commandname (on Solaris - see man page)

* BRUTE FORCE searches / make your computer the slave:
  - Can't find where the cart is?  Assuming your
    catalog is under /var/lib/interchange/catalog,
    try:
      find /var/lib/interchange/catalog -name "*cart*" -ls

  - Don't know where "search_box_small" is being
    used/defined?  Assuming your catalog is under
    /var/lib/interchange/catalog, try:
      find /var/lib/interchange/catalog -type f -exec grep -H search_box_small
{} \; -ls
    or perhaps for non-catalog-specific searches:
      find /usr/local/interchange/ -type f -exec grep -H search_box_small {} \;
-ls
      (Solaris uses will want GNU grep for the above -H)

* Read the source code.  This takes a while.  A good
  starting place, though are things like:
    ../catalogname/pages/*.html
    ../catalogname/products/*.txt


Hope this helps, and have fun!
John Young