Local services

Local services (previously known as local workers) are a collection of data manipulation and formatting services that are built into Taverna Workbench. The local services can be seen in the Service Panel and can be added to workflows in the same way as other services.

Categories of Local Services

There are several different categories of local services:

• base64 - services for manipulating data represented as Base 64 strings
• biojava - services for performing simple manipulation of biological data
• io - services for reading and writing files
• jdbc - services to query and update SQL databases
• list - list manipulation services
• ncbi - services to query NCBI databases
• net - services to retrieve data from the web and to send e-mail
• test - utility services that can be useful for checking other services
• text - string manipulation services
• ui - services to interact with users during the running of a workflow
• xml - XML manipulation services

Details of a Local Service

When you put a local service into your workflow, you can see information about the service in its Details.

The details shows the local worker service name i.e. if you inserted a Read Swiss Prot File service into your workflow and renamed it read_data, then the details will show Read Swiss Prot File.

Changing a Local Service

Local services are implemented as Beanshell scripts. When you have included a local service in your workflow, you can edit the script to change what it does. To do this, choose Edit beanshell script by right-clicking on the service, or from its Details.

You will be asked for confirmation that you want to edit the script. If you change the script, then the local service will become a Beanshell service.

The details of the modified service will indicate that that it is altered and what it was originally.

To change an altered local service back to its original definition you must undo the change. There is currently no alternative way to do this.