Adding a Deleted File to a Task

My scenario is this:
When you select a directory to submit via workflow, that directory appears on the list of task "files" as a directory. (It does not break out into the files contained in that directory.) My workflow needs to look for these directories and break them out into their corresponding files, adding each file to the workflow task individually.

To do this, I rely upon a call to TeamSite::WFtask::AddFile to add the file(s) contained in that directory to the task.

But if a directory was deleted and then submitted to kick off the workflow, AddFile errors out, presumably because the individual file(s) that it's trying to add to the task no longer exist under the workarea. An explicit call to iwaddtaskfile (which is what AddFile does anyway) also fails.

How do I add a deleted file to a workflow task?

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Migrateduser

You could use File::Find to find all of the files under the corresponding directory in staging, loop though and call iwaddtaskfile for each (trim off the path up to STAGING first). If nobody has a better suggestion let me know and I will try to get you some sample code.

sleepyd

Thanks for the reply. Actually, the part you describe (searching for the files and trimming off the staging area) I've already got working.

It's the iwaddtaskfile that is the problem for me. (iwaddtaskfile fails when run against a file that's been deleted from the workarea.)

Any ideas on how to get around that hurdle?

Migrateduser

That's not very cool. When I have a chance I will give it a try here but I guess it may end up as a feature request?

I am sure you have thought of this but is there any way you can add the files to the task before the deletion? Because I am pretty sure they stick there if you do it that way (and it can be easier for the user to start the job before the deletion - they never have to do list modified - they just start a deletion job, or start a regular job and in one of their tasks, delete).

sleepyd

Yeah, I kinda figured I'd be SOL on this one, but it's always worth asking...

As for the alternative you suggested (handling the deletion after the workflow's been invoked), good idea but not applicable in our case. (Users are coming in through TeamPortal, so they're spared the whole List Modified step already, and the workflow design dictates that they complete all the add/edit/delete stuff before invoking the job.) Thanks, though, for the suggestion.

james1

I guess the question is: Why do you need deleted directories to be broken down into individual deleted files? Perhaps there's a different way to do whatever it is you want to do.

-- James

--
James H Koh
Interwoven Engineering

Migrateduser

Actually I just tried it here and it seems to work. I used no / at the front of the path and even though I am no NT I used /. So:

iwaddtaskfile dir/file.xml

worked for me. TeamSite 5.5.2SP2A on Windows2000SP2.

To explain for efficiency.jpg

Migrateduser

Also, workflow performance can be very bad when a large number of files are attached to a job, which I could see happening if a directory was deleted. I would avoid it (just add the directory) if possible.

sleepyd

Hm... when I run it (TS5.5.2, Solaris):


iwaddtaskfile 24594 dir/file.txt comment

I get the following:


dir/file.txt does not exist in /default/main/branch/WORKAREA/workareaname.
ERROR:02009: No file or directory found

Migrateduser

But does that file exist in staging? The file I was using existed in staging, and had not been submitted since it was deleted through the TeamSite UI.

sleepyd

It's not absolutely necessary for me to break down the deleted directories into deleted files and then attach them to the workflow.

The original reason for this approach was that, in a subsequent task, I generate a filelist and then invoke an OpenDeploy deployment using that filelist. This deployment was not translating the directories into their constituent files, so I needed to change my filelist to replace the directories with the files contained in each.

I could have simply updated the external task that builds the filelists and calls on the deployment. That way, when I translate a deleted directory into deleted files, I wouldn't have to run up against this issue of trying to attach the deleted files to the workflow task - it's not necessarily to attach them to the task.

BUT: there's a predecessor task in my workflow which needs to have directories translated into files in order to operate correctly. (The job of this predecessor task is to check the metadata on each file attached to the workflow.)

So, to address both issues, I wrote a task that aimed to translate all directories (added/edited/deleted) into their constituent files. And that's what landed me here.

If the iwaddtaskfile (or any other solution) doesn't pan out, I have a way around this. (I'll translate the added/edited directories up front and attach the files to the task, but will translate the deleted directories only just before calling the deployment.)

sleepyd

Thanks for the tip on the file-exists-in-Staging. That was indeed the reason why my iwaddtaskfile had failed.

But wait! The plot thickens...

When I try to add to a task a deleted file which exists in a non-deleted directory (as in your example, and the one I tried in response), it succeeds.

When I try to add to a task a deleted file which exists in a deleted directory, however, it fails.

In both cases, the deleted directories/files have not yet been submitted to Staging, so they continue to exist there.

james1

> The original reason for this approach was that, in a subsequent
> task, I generate a filelist and then invoke an OpenDeploy
> deployment using that filelist. This deployment was not
> translating the directories into their constituent files, so I
> needed to change my filelist to replace the directories with the
> files contained in each.

I'm no OD expert, but I think that OpenDeploy should be able to delete a directory in a file-list deployment... This shouldn't be a problem...

> there's a predecessor task in my workflow which needs to
> have directories translated into files in order to operate
> correctly. (The job of this predecessor task is to check the
> metadata on each file attached to the workflow.)

So now can I ask why this task needs files instead of directories?

-- James

--
James H Koh
Interwoven Engineering

Migrateduser

Whether it is needed or not, there is no reason why it shouldn't work.

sleepyd

Turns out that you're right -- our team's OpenDeploy developer had made a mistake in his earlier testing, and when he repeated it today he discovered that OpenDeploy can add/delete directories in filelist deployments.

So my whole thread has now gone moot.
(which is okay with me...)

But just FYI: the reason for dealing with files instead of directories (I'll be keeping this part of my workflow) is that I've got a few external tasks which operate on each of the files attached to the workflow. (One of them propagates metadata from DCRs down into their extended attributes, another one check to make sure that the metadata has been set on all the files, etc.) For each of these, I could repeat the look-into-directories-for-their-files logic, or -- as I intend to do -- I could do that once up front and attach all the constituent files to the workflow itself and not have to alter any of the logic in the external tasks.

Long explanation for a resolved issue...

Thanks, john and james, for your help!

sleepyd

FYI to anyone who's looking for more information:

Here's the response I got from IW Support:

Regarding your question, you will not be able to use iwaddtaskfile to add a deleted file to a workflow. As an alternative, you can attach the files to the workflow before they are deleted. This way, the files will be in the workflow before they are deleted and thus the files can then be submitted to the staging area during the workflow. Or you might want to explore further with iwsubmit. For example, create an external task which calls iwsubmit CLT. You should be able to submit (using CLT) a deleted file which will eventually delete the file in the staging area.

Also, I found a feature request for this which has been already logged for a while. Our marketing department has it under review. The FR (#24174) description is: Customer will like to use workflow for file deletion & will like to option to add a deleted file (from a workarea) to a workflow for approval prior to deletion.

In the rest of this thread, you'll see that we discovered that you can add a deleted file to a task using iwaddtaskfile. But that is the case only if the deleted file did not reside in a directory that has also been deleted.