Fetching Reffered Contents on Delivery Side

Hi,

We have an application in which we are using "VGNREFERENCEMAP" table to get all the reffered content for a particular Content Instance. It is working fine on management stage, but it seems this table is NOT available on the delivery stage.

Is there any other table or API which can be used to get details of all reffered contents for a particular CI on Delivery stage.

Regards,
Deven

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David_Stiles

First, if you are saying that you are going directly to this table in the database, then you should never do this. This is completely unsupported. There are API methods available that encapsulate this work for you, which are supported and which you should be using instead. I don’t know what version you’re on, so I can’t tell you precisely which API I’d recommend, as there have been changes made in various releases. But the original methods were:

ContentManagementOps.getReferredManagedObjects()

ContentManagementOps.getReferringManagedObjects()

But at some point these methods were deprecated and replaced, by others. The API javadocs will guide you.

But that said, it is correct that they are not supported on a delivery stage with the absence of the vgnReferenceMap table. However, as of 8.1 (or perhaps 8.0, I can’t recall for certain), this table is now defined and populated on delivery stages, making related APIs functional there as well.

Without upgrading, there are two options I can see here. One approach is to use the ContentInstance.getReferences() API, but this may not work for you. This API is limited in what it will return to you. It will only return references that are contained in user defined attributes and which are references by primary key (i.e. key values stored in user defined tables). It will not return references that are based on system defined content management ids (i.e. vcm ids) or static file placement paths. It will also not return any system defined references that are not contained in attribute values.

If the ContentInstance.getReferences() API does not work for you, another approach would be to basically implement your own utility method that would do what ContentInstance.getReferences() should be doing, which is iterate through all attribute definitions on the content type to find those attributes defining references and then return the objects referenced through the attribute values of the content instance for those reference attributes.

There may also be some extension or utility code available from someone that will do this for you, but which I am not aware of.

From: eLink Entry: Discussion Group - Web Experience Management [mailto:v7webcontentmanagement@elinkkc.opentext.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 2:04 AM
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Subject: Fetching Reffered Contents on Delivery Side

Fetching Reffered Contents on Delivery Side

Posted bydeven.goratela@tcs.com (Goratela, Deven) On 04-24-2013 03:01

Hi,

Is there any other table or API which can be used to get details of all reffered contents for a particular CI on Delivery stage.

Regards,
Deven

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Forum:	Discussion Group - Web Experience Management
Content Server:	Knowledge Center

Deven_Goratela

Hi David,

Thanks a lot for such a comprehensive insight on the topic.

I had infact started exploring the way to achieve my requirement by using ContentType.getRelationMap() API. And yes I agree with you that I will have to create a utility method to get values based on the above API. Your comments actually gave us more confidence that we are going in correct direction.

Just wanted to confirm one thing that ContentType.getRelationMap() will return the accurate result on Delivery Stage also, right?

Once again Thank You for helping us here, we really appreciate it.

Regards,

Deven

Quoted David Stiles on 2013-04-25 09:25:

ContentManagementOps.getReferredManagedObjects()

ContentManagementOps.getReferringManagedObjects()

But at some point these methods were deprecated and replaced, by others. The API javadocs will guide you.

There may also be some extension or utility code available from someone that will do this for you, but which I am not aware of.

David_Stiles

Yes, ContentType.getRelationMap() should work correctly on delivery too. But while I suggested iterating through the attribute definitions of the content type, below is the actual implementation approach I would take. There are a few points worth noting about this though:

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>The method parameter is typed IRelatedAttribute in order to support the required recursion, but you can pass a ContentInstance into this directly.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>I chose a return type that is relatively consistent with other reference access methods, but you can easily tailor it to your preference.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>If you have a content type with a composite key and you reference instances of that type then this implementation wont handle those references properly. I didn’t include coverage of this case here because it is uncommon, but for a complete and general solution it would need to be handled. If you need this, I can help you with that part too.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>In the case of references by primary key or static file placement path, if the referenced object is not found, the references will not be returned by this method. But in the case of reference by vcm id, the reference will be returned even if the object doesn’t exist. The reason for the inconsistency is that with the return type I defined, a conversion must be made in the case of primary key or placement path, which cannot be done if the referenced object is not found. To be more consistent, you could try to find the object even in the case of vcm id and not return the reference if the object is not found.

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>There is at least one optimization that could be made in more recent versions of WEM, but I don’t know what version you’re on and this implementation should work for possibly all versions (or at least most).

<![if !supportLists]>· <![endif]>I did not test this method, so beware of careless mistakes on my part.

public Set<ManagedObjectVCMRef> getReferences(IRelatedAttribute ra)

throws ApplicationException, ValidationException {

Set<ManagedObjectVCMRef> references = new HashSet<ManagedObjectVCMRef>();

AttributeData[] attributes = ra.getAttributes();

for (AttributeData attribute : attributes) {

if ((attribute == null) || (attribute.getValue() == null)) {

continue;

}

AttributeDefinitionData add = attribute.getAttributeDefinition();

if (add == null) {

continue;

}

ReferenceData rd = add.getReference();

if (rd == null) {

continue;

}

ReferenceType rt = rd.getReferenceType();

if (rt == null) {

continue;

}

ManagedObjectVCMRef movr = null;

switch (rt.getValue()) {

case ReferenceType.CONTENT_TYPE_KEYS_VAL:

ContentTypeRef ctr = rd.getReferencedContentType();

ManagedObjectRef mor = new ManagedObjectRef(ctr, new AttributeData[] {attribute});

try {

ManagedObject mo = ManagedObject.findById(mor, RequestParameters.getImmutableInstanceTopRelationOnly());

movr = mo.getContentManagementId();

} catch (ApplicationException e) {

if (!e.getErrorCode().equals(ASErrorCode.FINDER_ERROR)) {

throw e;

}

break;

case ReferenceType.VCM_GUID_VAL:

movr = new ManagedObjectVCMRef((String)attribute.getValue());

break;

case ReferenceType.FILE_PATH_VAL:

IPagingList list = null;

try {

list = StaticFile.findByPlacementPath(

new String[]{(String) attribute.getValue()}, RequestParameters.getImmutableInstanceTopRelationOnly());

} catch (ApplicationException e) {

if (!e.getErrorCode().equals(ASErrorCode.FINDER_ERROR)) {

throw e;

}

if ((list != null) && (list.size() > 0)) {

StaticFile sf = (StaticFile)list.get(0);

movr = sf.getContentManagementId();

}

break;

}

if (movr != null) {

references.add(movr);

}

String[] relationNames = ra.getRelationNames();

for (String relationName : relationNames) {

AttributedObject[] relations = ra.getRelations(relationName);

for (AttributedObject relation : relations) {

references.addAll(getReferences(relation));

}

return references;

}

From: eLink Entry: Discussion Group - Web Experience Management [mailto:v7webcontentmanagement@elinkkc.opentext.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 10:59 PM
To: eLink Recipient
Subject: RE Fetching Reffered Contents on Delivery Side

RE Fetching Reffered Contents on Delivery Side

Posted bydeven.goratela@tcs.com (Goratela, Deven) On 04-24-2013 23:55

Hi David,

Thanks a lot for such a comprehensive insight on the topic.

Just wanted to confirm one thing that ContentType.getRelationMap() will return the accurate result on Delivery Stage also, right?

Once again Thank You for helping us here, we really appreciate it.

Regards,

Deven

Quoted David Stiles on 2013-04-25 09:25:

ContentManagementOps.getReferredManagedObjects()

ContentManagementOps.getReferringManagedObjects()

But at some point these methods were deprecated and replaced, by others. The API javadocs will guide you.

But that said, it is correct that they are not supported on a delivery stage with the absence of the vgnReferenceMap table. However,! as of 8.1 (or perhaps 8.0, I can’t recall for certain), this table is now defined and populated on delivery stages, making related APIs functional there as well.

Without upgrading, there are two options I can see here. One approach is to use the ContentInstance.getReferences() API, but this may not work for you. This API is limited in what it will return to you. It will only return references that are contained in user defined attributes and which are references by primary key (i.e. key values stored in user defined tables). It will not return references that are based on system defined content management ids (i.e. vcm ids) or static file placement path! s. It will also not return any system defined references ! that are ! not contained in attribute values.

There may also be some extension or utility code available from someone that will do this for you, but which I am not aware of.

[To post a comment, use the normal reply function]
Topic:	Fetching Reffered Contents on Delivery Side
Forum:	Discussion Group - Web Experience Management
Content Server:	Knowledge Center