Requirement to read a temp file

hi all,

I have a very specific, not to say weird, requirement.

Here it is:

I have a Windows application that generates an ASCII file. Once the file is created, it automatically launches a custom Webtop component passing the file name as a parameter.

So far so good.

The thing is that this file doesn't need to be imported in the docbase, my component needs to read it and do some stuff.

So far, the only way I found is, in my Webtop component, to create a dummy object in the docbase, set its content to the file I passed (I created my own checking component that extends the Check in component to do a check in from file without asking anything to the user).

Then, since my file is in the docbase, I can read its content, do my stuff and then I delete it from the docbase.

The thing with all that is:

That slows down the whole process since I create an object, then it uses the UCF to set the content and at the end, I need to delete the object
That's much more work to maintain the code, in the future, for upgrades for example

I was wondering: Would there be a way to be able to read the content of this file, or on the client machine directly or by uploading it in the app server temp directory or something like that.

Any idea ?

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Comments

DCTM_Guru

Is your custom component display the contents of the temp file or using the contents to drive the configuration of the component? If the later, instead of writing the values to temp file, you could try to write it to session variables and then retrieve those values in your component. If its the former, then you should be able to write it to the app server directories. I dont see why you would download it to the client, since your component is executing on the app server.

Buddy

Well, actually, it's the second, the content of the file drives the behavior of the component.

The thing with using the sessions is that there can be a big log of information in the content so I'm probably going to hit some memory or other errors there.

The question would be, how can I get this file from the client to the app server temp directory. It is generated on the client, not on the app server, that's the main point of my problem.

DCTM_Guru

Your original post made it sound like this was a backend process, not a user driven event. If content is coming from the client machine, then you have to use UCF or http to transfer the content from the client to the app server. You might be able to intercept the content transfer before it gets to the repository, but I havent done this before, so I cant provide any guidance.

If this was a backend process, then you could potentially pust the content to app server from the content server and then from your WDK component, you could read the file from explicitly path.

Buddy

Sorry, I should have, indeed, specifically mentioned that the application creating the temp file was on the client machine.

Actually, with my kind of hidden check in, that's what I do (meaning, using the transfer method configured in Webtop) but as I said, that creates a new object in the docbase which I have to remove after (provided there's no runtime errors occurring).

That's why I was asking if somebody would know another way to transfer a file from a client machine to the app server, not needing a docbase object, I'd expect performances to be better and the whole thing to be safer as in Java, you can create a Temp file that is removed automatically when the JVM shuts down, which means, if I can't remove it myself for any reason (run time error in the component for example), it will be cleaned up the next time the App server is restarted....

Thank you anyways for trying.

Anybody else ?

ukdavo

Could your windows app fire a HTTP POST? If so, perhaps you could post the content to a servlet, perhaps even a WDK component (pretty sure a WDK component can access the HTTP request). An alternative approach could be using a signed applet.