Art of BI: Converting the OBIEE Repository File (.rpd) Into a XML (.xml) File
Author: Bill Anderson | 5 min read | December 21, 2016
In comparison to 11g, the Oracle 12c release introduced a lot of changes both in features and the installation procedure. One of the changes was in the installation of Oracle Enterprise Metadata Management. The installation procedure has no instructions on how to convert the RPD to XML for 12c, even though it is almost the same as for 11g.
Some other changes related to the conversion process of RPD to XML for 12c in the installation of OEMM include:
- Downloading from and uploading to the server a repository file and making it available to the queries
- The inability to FTP the current RPD down from the server and use it for further modification
- The Enterprise Manager deployment tab to upload a repository has been replaced with one command-line utility, data-model-cmd.sh.
Steps for Converting the OBIEE 12c RPD to a XML file (Linux)
Step 1: Download the RPD file
The RPD file directory has also changed in 12c and the RPD now is located here:
/OBIEE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi/bidata/service_instances/ssi/metadata/datamodel/customizations
To download the RPD:
1.Open a new cmd window
2.Change directories to the current RPD
cd /OBIEE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi/bidata/service_instances/ssi/metadata/datamodel/customizations
You will need a password to copy the latest RPD file and open it in Administrator. This internal password is a new security feature designed to stop anyone from just copying the RPD file and editing it. To download an RPD file for editing you need to use a new utility called data-model-cmd.sh located in this directory: /OBIEE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi/bitools/bin
There are some parameters you’ll need for this command, the minimum of which are:
Downloadrpd the instruction to download the RPD
-O rpdfilename the name you want to give to the RPD file you’re downloading
-SI OBIEE service instance, e.g. ssi
-U Weblogic administrator user-id
-P Weblogic administrator password
From that directory, run the download RPD command as follows:
/OBIEE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi/bitools/bin/data-model-cmd.sh downloadrpd -O liverpd.rpd -SI ssi -U weblogic -P Admin123
This command will copy the RPD file to your directory. Upon running the command, it will prompt you to enter a password for this RPD file. It doesn’t ask you to confirm this, so make sure you know what you entered to avoid rerunning the command to download it again.
Step 2: Convert RPD to XML
Once downloaded, you will need to change directories in order to proceed with the conversion process using the steps below.
1. Change directories so you can run the script
cd /OBIEE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi/bitools/bin
2. Run the biserverxmlgen.sh script as follows:
./biserverxmlgen.sh –R /RPD_SAVED_DIRECTORY/liverpd.rpd –P Admin123 –O SampleAppRPD.xml –N –Q -8
3. This will create the XML file needed in this directory: /OBIEE_HOME/user_projects/domains/bi/bitools/bin
And you’re done! Hope this quick overview of how to download and convert the RPD file to XML in OBIEE 12c was helpful. Now you can utilize the converted XML for things like Oracle Enterprise Metadata Modeling and others.
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