Capture generated output file path and name using CSSDK

Howdy folks. We are in the process of converting over to using the XSLT compiler for page generation. I have a Xalan Java extention to exploit the CSSDK and capture some meta data we have stored in the Extended Attributes for output to the page. No problems in getting the EA's rendered to the output file.

The problem is that I don't know how to dynamically capture the file path and name of the output file.

So just as POC, I have the CSVPath hard coded to the output file in my Java extension. Here's a code sample:

CSSimpleFile sourceFile = (CSSimpleFile)client.getFile(new CSVPath("/some-path-to-the-output.jsp"));

Can someone point me in the CSSDK to where I could capture the output file?

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Rick Poulin

Pretty sure this question was posted on devnet before, but I don't recall what the answer was..

I'd say if this information isn't available as an environment variable, then you may have to write your own PTCompiler to have this level of control over the output. It's a pretty heavy option but I can vouch that it works, and it might be a worthwhile route if you're going to have many more customizations of this nature (namely, instead of using implementation-specific extensions in your XSL, you'd have access to modify the input datasource directly and inject/manipulate it however you want).

/this approach is supported, in case you're wondering...

Migrateduser

Thanks so much for the advice, Rick. I'm not sure that we'd need to write our own PTCompiler for this task.
I've found that the XSLTExtensionContext class in the CSSDK: ../cssdk/transform/XSLTExtensionContext.html

has methods for getOutputDirectory() and getOutputFileName().

With my CSClient already created, I instantiated it in a new XSLTExtensionContext variable, yet I'm getting a null value during the page rendering process.

If you have any experience using the XSLTExtensionContext class in this way, or if you know that I am not using the XSLTExtensionContext in the appropriate manner, let me know. Otherwise, I'll keep digging. Thanks again.

Rick Poulin

With my CSClient already created, I instantiated it in a new XSLTExtensionContext variable, yet I'm getting a null value during the page rendering process.

Looking at that class, it's probably instantiated for you by the OOTB CSPTCompiler and stored as data on the current thread object. So rather than

XSLTExtensionContext context = new XSLTExtensionContext(csclient);

I think what you want is this:
XSLTExtensionContext context = XSLTExtensionContext.getContext();

Disclaimer: that's a guess based on how the class is written; I have not tested this out myself.

To write a custom compiler, you'd create a subclass of CSPTCompiler and implement the abstract methods. Then, in your templating.cfg, you specify your custom class at the ptcompiler rather than the OOTB one.

Migrateduser

Thanks again, Rick. That is plenty of food for thought. Time to eat. :-)

Migrateduser

Hello Rick. I wanted to thank you for your guidance and I hope the following explanation and snippet will help folks out.

Using the examples provided in the cssdk/samples. I tweaked one so that I captured the CSClient in the method getClientForCurrentUser(). I had to watch out for SOAP vs Java connections. In development, I was using a SOAP connection and for the make_toolkit build, the Java connection was required for our purposes.

Check the following snippet. The request CSClient is captured in the static variable "client".

CSSimpleFile sourceFile = (CSSimpleFile)client.getFile(new CSVPath(XSLTExtensionContext.getContext().getOutputDirectory().toString() + "/" + XSLTExtensionContext.getContext().getOutputFileName()));