Invoke link checker from workflow ?

Has anybody tried to invoke the link checker from a workflow ? I am talking about the link checker functionality available from SCE.
The requirement is that link checking should be done on every page that is submitted for approval.
Any ideas ?
[TS 5.5.2, Solaris. ]

Edited by iwovGraduate on 11/11/02 12:16 PM (server time).

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Johnny

That would be handy.

From what ive seen the link checker is a jsp/servlet page. Being able to interact with it from a workflow doesnt sound feasible.

Maybe you could have extra javascript code written to your page, say when you are only in preview mode that automatically calls the same command as the button on the sce. I cant see anyway to force an action on it though.

John
Sydney, Australia

iwovGraduate

Thanks John,

do you know what is the command that SCE calls ? Sorry for a blunt question like that, but it is not very clear to me from the SCE java script code.

I see that the SCE calls something like http://<hostname>/iw/webdesk/checklinks?<some_url_parameters>.

If I can determine what are the parameters and the format, I can make the cgi task list the (html) files which are in submitlist and provide a button/link next to it that will pop up the link checker for each file. That way even if the author does not bother to check links, the reviewer will have an option to verify and send it back. That really does not meet the requirement of *enforcing* link checking, but is still much better solution than just the option in SCE.

I see that the linkchecker is a jsp/servlet, however I am not entirely convinced why we cannot call it from a CGI.

Adam Stoller

I have not tried this out - but you might want to check out Improving Link Verification. There's actually a more recent version of the script on the same site, but it uses LWP: Smiley Tongue

arallel which does not ship with the current distribution of iwperl (you can download it of course - I may try it out some day if I find the time)

--fish
(Interwoven Senior Technical Consultant)

Book.txt

Books1.pdf

iwovGraduate

Thanks, that could come handy for many situations ! I haven't been able to try it out yet..

However, my question still remains - how to call the link checker that is shipped with TeamSite ? - if at all possible.

I am not entirely convinced why we cannot use it and rely on a thrid-party link checking when TeamSite ships with one - which works really great !

Thanks
-S.

Migrateduser

Here's a blast from the past. I would really, really like to accomplish what iwovGraduate asked for a couple years ago. Is it possible to execute the link checker that's embedded in the SCE bar (in both 5.x and 6.x) from either a command line or from a cgitask and post the results or send the results to a file? I'm desperately trying not to have to use a third party perl link checker since the link checker that TeamSite uses works really nicely for what we need.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

Yes I think we all need this as you can't really do content management without link management.

Couldn't you have a Perl script invoke the URL for the SCE linkchecker, scan the results for whatever tokens indicate broken links and do whatever based on that? A certain amount of hacking and breakability would result, but without third party tools I don't see a supported solution.

Migrateduser

If it's possible at all, I'd like to use the tool embedded in the product. I know there are perl solutions out there, but that means I have to maintain it and be aware of upgrades and all that nonsense. I just figured since the tool in TeamSite works so well, why not use it? I'm not savvy enough to figure out how....was hoping someone would have done it by now and helped this old complainer out.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

I agree, I wouldn't want another link checker to support.

Seems like it wouldn't be hard to use the one that's out there - run the link checker, watch the apache logs, see what request comes in, use that info to put together the URL, then invoke the corresponding URL from you script. I know how to invoke the URL from the script but I don't know the URL for linkcheck or what to grep the results for. If you want to try this approach I can try to put together a proof of concept.

Migrateduser

Awesome, John. Thank you. My first stupid question is where are the Apache logs located? And then once I have the URL I want to execute, how do I invoke it from a perl script?

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

apache logs may be in IWHOME/iw-webd/logs, or /var/adm/iwui or something (not sure if iwgetlocation -a would tell you). If it's using post instead of get it may be harder to see what params are being passed. Let me dig up my old HTTP crawling code (I think it's an easy module to use).

nipper

One problem with the perl version of a link checker is the proxy server. The original IW provided link checker
had the same issue. If you use a absolute path (/html/smitty-gripes-alot.html) which is really somewhere
like /iwmnt/.../.../.../WORKAREA/wa/html/smitty-gripes-alot.html, it used to show as an error with the original
link checker. Seems to work now.

Also, one of our sites uses javascript to build the left nav menu. The 5.5.2 links checker misses all of those
menu items.

Have not tried 6.1.

Andy

nipper

>Awesome, John. Thank you. My first stupid question is where are the Apache logs located? And

I thought we talked about this long ago & figured you are not using apache as a web server.

Weren't you using netscape ?

Andy

Migrateduser

Almost any link checker (or search engine for that matter) is not going to follow JavaScript links.

Migrateduser

I love when I get myself into these situations where my ignorance is so glaring it requires you use a welder's mask to see through it. I have no friggin' clue what we're using. I have my sys admin on the case now. I did find in 6.1 that the URL appears in the Properties when i right click on the Check Links menu item in the SCE. So I have the URL in 6.1. That little trick doesn't work in 5.5.2

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Migrateduser

DId a quick check, looks like it uses Frames and/or Javascript, I am not sure how you would mimic this from Perl. And it looks like it's wrapped with Tomcat so it expects a cookie.

Anyway I'm on 5.5.2 so everything I say is probably wrong.

Sorry to waste your time but I think you're back where you started?

Migrateduser

Well my glee from thinking I found the URL for the link checker soon turned to chagrin as when I invoked the URL in a cgitask, it popped up a screen with the word LOADING and that was that. Big whoop. I am back to where I started.

This is the URL I had hoped would work:

http://myserver/iw-cc/command/iw.vpreview.list_links?vpath=//myserver.nike.com/default/main/intranet/sports_centers/WORKAREA/int/index.htm

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

iwovGraduate

Interesting.. I remember I had tried to get a link in 5.5.2 without luck.

Anyways, were you able to use the link in TS 6.x to see any results ? When I try that link, I get JS error:
"opener" is null or not an object

The link I tried is:

http://HOSTNAME/iw-cc/command/iw.vpreview.list_links?vpath=VPATH_TO_FILE_IN_WORKAREA

Migrateduser

Yeah I just posted the link I used, which I think is exactly what you posted. It printed the word LOADING and that was all it did. Sure would be nice to get a little love from Interwoven on this. There has to be a way to invoke that link...

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

iwovGraduate

Ah, just saw all the posts after I sent mine. This thread is growing faster than I can read Smiley Happy

I wasn't lucky to get the love from Interwoven on this back when I originally posted this. I am hoping that theres an easy way they can expose the link checking via CCI link (or URL commands? or whatever its called in 6.x)

Migrateduser

I just opened a case. I'll let you know the feature request number as soon as they give it to me. If I'm lucky, this will someday be the first FR of mine they ever actually implement.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

nipper

FWIW, Nike is running Sun-ONE-Web-Server/6.1

(per www.netcraft.com)

ANdy

Migrateduser

Maybe in production we are. My sys admin found the log. I don't know if it's Apache, Netscape, or Mattel.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

iwovGraduate

If you were trying to see the access log when making the (above posted) SCE URL for link check, that request will go through iw-webd, which is Apache, unless you changed it. The log file(s) should be iw-home/httpd/iw-webd/logs/access.log, iw-home/httpd/iw-webd/logs/error.log on windows. On Solaris it would be the directory you specified for log files during installation (or changed later).

wsin(46).txt

C101521.txt

Migrateduser

The log file is apparently this: /interwoven/logs/iwui/access_log

I don't know what we're running. I just want the link checker to work. You asked the question 2 friggin' years ago and still nothing for workflow. Does no one use link checking in workflow? It seems like such an obvious hook for workflow to use. Where is Interwoven on this? They've had two years to think about it.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com