Metadata for the brave

Metadata  in Livelink (Yawn ContentServer) is mostly by a Object Called Categories.A Category Object again is of subtype 131 and it can have versions.Its content or version file looks like XML and translates the data structure for use with Livelink.When some one adds a Category to an Object like Document,Folder etc  what you are essentially doing is requesting the latest copy of the Category Template(131) or it will be the Category applied to the parent container.Then it goes through an oscript/weblingo layer where it paints the structure like is it a Text? is it Mandatory and so on.Increasingly I see OT advising customers to use SETS and that too with Multiple Values.I tried to stay away from SETS in my design because it is next to impossible to write reports when there is more than one value involved 🙂

A Picture is worth a thousand words so I am showing a Category called SapCategory as you can see I have some that are very self descriptive however these terminology is probably worth understanding.In Livelink projects you will affix useful metadata{ a set of categories(131), some Classifications(199) or RM Classifications (551) }.OT has prided itself on capability of its search and indexing engine(after all OT was the first guys to index the OED and that greatly increases the work they put in this ) so all this metadata that you put and inherit it down to millions of items is supposed to find you patterns of knowledge in your organization.The xECM side of the house puts technical categories so does AGA so that in first shot looking at the object metadata one can even say what it purports to be.Classifications and RM Classifications look like category metadata but they allow alternate taxonomies and navigation structures.

MVA-Multi Valued Attribute indicate by the + and – signs.In any case if you only have one Value also it is internally a List of values.On top of it now all Livelink servers can have that in more than one language . OT does not the make category metadata multi language but our good friends at Cassia ECM make it and sell it through OT.

Set -The Set is a place holder where in you can define more and more primitive datatypes and it looks aesthetically pleasing(?) or even easier to understand data.Both Sets and Categories subtype will say AttrType=-18 and AttrID indicates the position.

For techies see my revelation to the world I think the link is permanently lost

There is a simple Request Handler called attributes.dump ( perhaps it is hidden in the admin.index pages and you might need a SA prv) you will see that the Set Identifier does not have a Attribute ID

Nobody from OpenText has told the programming world or developers how to look at this DataStructure well not in so many words at least.. Everyone is using their own methods do something.How many SET parsing/example  requests happen in the OT KB and OT answers cryptically? Or as a Java or a C# programmer is one supposed to be that intelligent to figure everything out? I believe it is very shortsighted of OT to push towards their professional services,or WebReports to achieve anything and everything.Since the move from LAPI some hobby programmers have shown the parsing.I have had countless requests from developers who wanted to see how to go about it so this is a way to help them. Actually since all ReturnValues are coded for OOP apparently this is much easier than in LAPI days but still a new programmer cannot be expected to become a livelink knowledgeable person for participating in one project.

Imagine a Node Object like Document or Folder has had a category attached,then its values are in its MetaData Object.The MetaData Object consists of AttributeGroups which are akin to List of Categories.So if you have applied 7 Categorise expect 7.These 7 will show you empty shells or filled shells of information.

So I have this and another category attached /applied to an object

As you can see those are the two categories or an AttributeGroups Object of two AttributeGroup.OK so if you isolate one AttributeGroup you will get the individual keys(Attributes).OK then you need to test/cast these complex structures from their Livelink given out DataValue to things people can understand Namely StrinValue,IntegerValue and DateValue.Now if a Set is encountered you will get a TableValue object.Now the TableValue will contain a excel row like representation and is a RowValue Object.Once you isolate the RowValue into its DataValue you will get its IntegerValue,StringValue and such like.Good thing they did not allow a Set inside a Set 🙂

The key of an Attribute is made up of <category dataid>_<version>_<attributeID>

So hopefully the code I post in C# helps a poor soul.Now please understand that the Category Data Structure is a pretty complicated way how the Data is shown,how the Data is held in a Table and how the reporting table has been considered. When we were in the LAPI era the entire structure was given to you as a LLValue Object out of which you had to get the Types isolated and program.This was me in 2004 battling out a worked out example in LAPI documentation   which actually did not work if you actually cut and pasted the sample.So I just took it as a challenge and trying to learn the OT debugger and its Script actually helped me with it

 

Link to Code File coming soon 🙂 One thing I noticed in 2017 against CS16 is now OT has already built a category called “External Att” with some commonly asked of functionality Good Job…

Hopefully they might be trying to get rid of the “Additional Node Attributes” piece in OT

Screen Cap of when I run the code against a Node in LL.You can optimize the loops when you understand how the code is supposed to be written.Frankly my intention is to show  you how  to iterate the DataStructure.

 

A C# file that I wrote that takes a NodeID in Livelink and spits out Category Info

Including Sets & MVA

 

 

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What is Enterprise Web Services a.k.a Content Web Services

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LAPI and its client installer has become very hard to find. Moreover clients written in LAPI  in say Java/.NET will only work if your Livelink a.k.a Content Server is of version less than CS16.Readers who are new to LL programming is encouraged to read this to the approach and not to the exact lines of the code.What I mean is when you used to program in LAPI you were basically passing parameters to discrete calls by modelling it based on the webgui of livelink .SOAP based webservices called CWS is also the same,so if you do not try to do the task in the webgui and try to understand the business rules you will almost have no success in CWS too. OT is notorious for not putting fully functioning use cases and a walk through,so whenever possible I write code assuming the user has not worked in Livelink for X number of years and try to educate you all. Livelink,Content Server,Enterprise Server all of this has been Livelink’s marketing brand name changes over the years.CS i sused in many of the integrations like AGA, XECM, RMLINK  and you know you are programming against livelink if you see a link that looks like this  http(s)://somefriendlyURL/livelink.exe|cs.exe|llisapi.dll|cs.dll|livelink.In many places SAP/ SP /Exchange will be configured to talk to Archive Server and then they will use Livelink to read into archive server and turn that into LL objects for better presentment/RM and other aspects. The AGA product is moving away from LAPI(not sure totally or not) to REST API in LL.

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Many people seem to have understood my post  about LAPI 

The AGA (Sharepoint to Livelink Integration) product is the only officially supported OT product that seems to use old lapi binaries.Most of us have moved away for using it although when you are in a time crunch you can still use it.If you still want to use lapi make sure you are writing client code in java which takes care of most inconsistencies regarding 64/vs 32 bit J# problems.If you are a modern day .net buff see how old lapi can be run in new .net ways.

Back to CWS/EWS- Livelink is branded Content Server so it is no surprise that its API reflects that.The binaries that make up the wsdl is delivered without any additional installation  in the same file path as the livelink server is installed.So if you run your livelink in a IIS webserver,you just “expose” the  code from OT into a application.If you run your livelink in a Tomcat server then just dump the war file and TC will do the magic.The Web.Config in both he deployments make sure where it can talk to.For e.g in a livelink install if you see the Web.Config say localhost & 2099 when you call the beautiful code form your client it sends all that “stuff” into the livelink “server” listening on “localhost” and “2099”.None of this is hard coded and most livelink organizations will not use localhost resolution.And as a client api programmer you don’t need to worry too much.Ask for a webgui account before you start any livelink programming.It will keep you sane.What you are programming with a language is the same “business rules'” that livelink will throw to your code.Typical “new” programmer things like expecting category workspaces,enterprise workspaces to be 2004 & 2000 should be avoided the mistakes are very commonly seen in even vended applications.there are many livelinks in the world that do not have those ids.BTW like many others I also thought that to write java client code I had to have livelink running in a java app server.No I regularly now write .Net clients against a TC deployed WSAPI and java clients against a IIS deployed WSAPI. I also have written oscript based CWS things that is only needed when OT supplied stubs & proxies won’t cut a particular task.BTW when you install Records management,Physical Objects,Classifications they all deploy their CWS API.As your administrator to deploy that if you wanted to do programming against those functionalities . I advocate bundling  everything under one website it makes the admin’s life easier well they are unsupported by OT but I do it anyway

Once you are prepared to first write your lines of code you may want to understand what you are doing.

1. Livelink is a protected/authenticated DMS application so it will check if you have a valid account and if you have permissions to a particular object. BTW OpenText is the company making these products as far as I know there is not a product(binary) in that name.many consultants I have worked with refers to “we have given stuff to OpenText” which ain’t happening because there is  nothing called that you can hand it to” In webgui the authentication is achieved primarily by putting a userid and password,almost nobody uses this method now or by a authentication service.In most companies if the application is IIS served that means you will almost for certain be vetted by IWA.  Unfortunately OT does not provide samples ,I have written things and many others have done it too.   nobody But ultimately your code has to pass a webserver and pass into the application layer
2. OT markets a TC (java stack) application called OTDS .It is some very simple java code that interacts with livelink,active directory or other LDAP sources .It relies on your call being passed off to a OTDS server which uses industry standard methods to create a auth token.In many simple installs it is akin to the cookie that is given to your browser after login.OT provides samples using that.It also will be mandatory in several OT installs which are primarily not a DMS.Like SAP integration,AGA integration and so on.You now have “kewl” tools like Fiddler,Wireshark etc to debug many things
3. If you  have a authentication token half the battle is one,you can now try simple things like adding folders,documents,applying categories to etc when you stumble simply bring up the web ui browser and see what you are trying is possible in “that” livelink.Because code you may have got working in another project may not because every livelink install can define its business rules differently 🙂
4. These conditions can be tested in a matter of minutes by using  SOAPUI  .Once you have gotten in with a auth token and accessed enterprise workspace or perosnal workspaces,then switch to a java client ide or a .net ide . SOAPUI can only be used for certain aspect,things will get extremely complex when you encounter category/attribute data structures(funny the push to get away from llvalue data structures in lapi is still there albeit using data structures like AttributeGroups) so soapui will not cut it.

Other Buzzwords you may hear in a Livelink based project

• REST API. OT has been forced by the programming world to have a REST API implementation available in kick butt livelink installs.Note every call with a REST API is akin to you accessing livelink via a browser so save yourself some head ache by not designing bulk loader things with it.You may want to show off your livelink in a mobile application.BTW I think AppWorks is the marketing hype name for that.
• Search API-when you are in a livelink session and type a search term it is the Search API that is working for you.You can create cool search based apps with it.For heaven sake resist the temptation to write lapi or CWS code for livelink search it ain’t very easy and it si convoluted.
• ELS API- It is the wrapper connecting Livelink and archive server .The definition is not technically correct.If you wanted a SAP system to use Records management or Business Work Spaces you would put this middle ware called (old name RCS). This is a solution… means utimately you will have to pay people who know SAP Basis configuartion & Functional  , Livelink configuration and Archive server configuration.Recently a guy asked me about CMIS  . I looked at it and I told him to concentrate on the 3 aspects and he figured it out note that CMIS is a industry protocol  and ot uses that in a ELS API layer for some objective I know not. Most solutions you will hear terms like Archive Link ,RM Link,ECM Link 

Happy Livelink API or CWS or EWS programming

Java Samples for Content Webservices

 
I LOST ALL CONTENT WHICH WAS STORED IN COMMUNITIES.OPENTEXT.COM.IF YOU ARE A STARTER READING THIS AND WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE ORIGINAL CONTENT DEPENDING ON TIME I HAVE I CAN SEND YOU SNIPPETS.LEAVE A COMMENT TO SUCH EFFECT.

Java Samples for Content Webservices are few and far in between.OT mainly puts samples in C# and many  a times I myself wonder if my company did not allow me to do that how I would do that in Java.In all truth OT ships a massive application called TreeView.java and TreeView.s ln for both languages .But the java thing takes a lot of setup especially if one was not keeping active in that world.However I used the NetBeansIDE to actually do most of that so I use that debugging environment to try all my java stuff Recently I debugged how to run a Live Report in livelink via C# webservices.Then somebody wanted me to show them how to do it via Java.One of these days I want to return to seeing if I can do all this command line with nothing else other than notepad.

Well I created two word documents, my guess is the poster did not speak english  very well,did not know livelink nor did know java to start with  .Hence I dumbed it enough for people to follow in almost any criteria.

 

Having livelink and its builder helps me in my endeavours and so Oscript remains my first love although I am getting farther and farther from it all

 

I have these files in the Communities website

If I had a LR taking a string parameter  how to write that in Java(C# is available aplenty)

If I had a LR taking a integer parameter how to write that in Java(C#is available aplenty)

There is a bug with Live Report Extensions.A poster in KB said that OT is aware of it.

Why Having LR Extensions(something that Webreports) company produces breaks Livereport calling with Webservices of OT

 

 

OH MY SAP

Between 2009-2012 I was instrumental in architecting a very large RMlink implementation.I was mainly hired for setting up livelink.livelink RM,archive server.My peripheral duties included acting as SME to the RM link implementation.Further the customer decided they would make use of two OT products one livelink and the other Artesia(DAM) both  would sit in the SAP netweaver and be visible based on the employees roles.I know nothing about all that.Slowly but surly I began to understand that livelink a.k.a Content Server is going to be the brains and Archive Server was going to be the brawn in this implementation.The RCS tomcat stack at best could be described a nuisance or so I thought because once it started misbehaving there was nothing you could do other than uninstall.On top of it we were forced to work on a AIX(Unix) archive server implementation.We had specific archive server things that we had to maintian for that to work and with every patch RCS it overwrote everything we had configured.I figured out that RCS was basically using servlet/java code to call livelink that is pretty much it.It would be called “Enterprise library”,ELItem,ELVariant what not but the real fact remains that it is in dtree with a subtype that is known to most livelink people.At a pre -go live meeting a bombshell appeared in the form of a SAP consultant(big manager kind of guy)  who said how are you going to handle the authentication ticket from SAP for livelink & Artesia? Upto that time we had created a IWA implementation of livelink replete with LDAP(AD) SSO and we thought that would be it ,the SAP netweaver user and the livelink user is using the same AD and hence would basically be in the same env not challenged by AD.No the manager insisted that livelink and artesia need to work based on the ticket given to you from SAP.It looked like either the manager knew what he was talking about or he just wanted to show off stuff.Everybody started looking at me and I really had nowhere else to look.Luckily a very experienced  person came to the rescue and said to me that SAP produces mechanisms for all commercial webservers including IIS & Java stacks.  

Now we started in earnest burning the midnight oil and I had a very great apprentice  at that time.I would say he is very good

He started getting the IIS web server loaded with the SAP filter it is like the llisapi.dll that we use in livelink and when it works it needs a certificate form the sap instance that is going to decrypt the cookie.Then we tried writing it to REMOTE_USER which it wrote as http_remote_user.I think REMOTE_USER is a variable that you cannot rewrite.In any case we change the livelink to look for that environment variable voila we had SSO based on MYSAPSSO2 in place.Phew.Firefox plugins,Fiddler,Wireshark and a general understanding of what goes and comes where is what on would need to crack things of this nature.BTW I saved all my work in a drive which I have since lost so some of this is from memory.My knowledge of how livelink handles authentication really helped in making this solution.thanks you builder for that.

I later customized the livelink look and feel and removed most unwanted stuff so the real estate was there for people to work

For artesia we had to take the java class file and retrofit the login again this java file would not work in a regular package declaration like one would do.It was not common knowledge and I basically resorted to Reflections code and got it to work.I got in touch with a SAP SDN member who actually said I should use a particular package that SAP produces or not use a package declaration at all.So go figure.Nothing that SAP gives you in documentation says that.So go figure .You could say OT & SAP are birds of the same feather when it comes to hand holding examples.

In the current setting the OTDS conundrum that you load in RCS will handle the SAP logon ticket.I have not yet had the need to make OTDS work in my job so I hope it is easy and past the buggy stage that I have known to associate RCS with .Our OT ECMLink/RM link people always thought livelink impersonation was SSO which again I fought with them telling no they are actually different.In any case the customer did not do ECMlink when I was there other than trial runs.I am sure the java code stack is much better nowadays.

I hope reading this will help somebody in my same shoes

To Err is Java,to Forgive Oscript

The first time I learned that a piece of java code could be called from Oscript was in 2005.This was closely after the debacle of the Java Modules development that OT wanted people to follow.Not sure what the programming paradigm was but to me it looked like you would do Java coding and oscript coding simultaneouslytto get something done.In any case it died a natural death and we are not discussing here.The Home RH which is remnant is what people would remember of that.

We are discussing Oscript to Java Bridge which is a great help to you if you wanted to do something.That somethings could be

1. Call a web Service form oscript bypassing the socket stuff
2. Whatever you could get java to do and get it to use in livelink

Now Hans stoop of OT Germany was the first person to tell the developer world this and people started on that in earnest.I was a natural taker and I basically took Rolf Poser’s approach which     was a oscript module that spit out some java strings.Naturally to learn I created a Request Handler and put it for general consumption 

Notice I have given all credits where it is due as these good programmers have kept the OT programming environment proactively upward without which it would be a very sorry affair.Now for newer developers if there is no time to research anything then you have only you to blame.For one thing I think if you do not understand class paths and if you cannot understand how java code works and thought Eclipse and Netbeans were there from day one,I reserve my comments.I still like to use a notepad to write java code and compile them.Enough of digression here is the quick things you need to do.

1. Always True Statement #1-Builder IDE does not load the JVM by default.You have to “tweak” the builder shortcut.It is basically written in the builder documentation as well as in several other published examples
2. Always True Statement #2-Livelink is going to use the JRE, again JRE that ships with the livelink application so make sure your code is compiled on that  JVM. See JVM’s in 9.7.1 and 10 in my screen caps.
3. Always True Statement #3-The class loader of service and builder is different,which brings me to my acronym OMH(Over My Head) see these threads where java people talk about it.I always make sure I can see ‘Hello World’  in my builder output.The ‘HelloWorld’ e.g settles the environment problems and then we can think of Relections et al.

Link to a word document with screen caps and some important links

As time permits I will see if I can put up an example for doing something with Java on CS10

BTW Java is a great language but do understand that the world was not built by Java although increasingly OT is moving things that really don’t belong in livelink to java based offerings. A java coup d’état    ? We  have seen OTDS and then Oclipse…. H’mm sounds fishy to me.