(Javascript) business rules for bulk uploads

[leifuss]

Hi

I'm trying to implement a dropbox system using javscripts triggered by business rules. (It seems a lot quicker and easier to manage that way than to create a rule for each action). The main problem that I am facing at the moment is with bulk uploads (generally via CIFS).

when faced with a directory the business rule will only be run over the directory itself, not the contents - I can handle this with simple iterative loop over its children, and this works fine if I execute the script on content that is already in Alfresco. If I trigger it on the point of entry however, Alfresco is still only aware of the parent node, so a call to

container.children.length‍

returns 0 (i.e. it is an empty array). That means that I can only apply metadata etc. to the directory itself and not its contents.

I could presumablyuse a cron job as a workaround but it would be much more efficient (and intuitive for users) to run it at the point of import. Has anyone found a way to do this?

Many thanks,
Leif

[leifuss]

As an addendum to this, is it possible to create a versioned update of a binary file via javascript? Trying to copy over it throws an exception and setting the document.content old file from that of the new file seems dodgy as it uses a character (rather than binary) stream.

L.

[kevinr]

As an addendum to this, is it possible to create a versioned update of a binary file via javascript? Trying to copy over it throws an exception and setting the document.content old file from that of the new file seems dodgy as it uses a character (rather than binary) stream.

Correct yes it was designed for just dealing with text based content.

We have added a new API for this, but it only made it into the 2.1Enterprise codeline - it will be merged over to the HEAD code stream shortly.

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/JavaScript_API#ScriptContent_API
see the write() method.

Thanks,

Kevin

[leifuss]

Great - thanks

When does 2.1 enterprise become available? And (as if that weren't helpful enough!) any thoughts on the directory import problem?

Cheers

L.

[kevinr]

By the end of the week in theory, but i'm not signing anything

I think the problem you are seeing with the empty array is a known issue with CIFS. Due to the way the CIFS protocol works, the creation of each item such as a folder or a file is a separate transaction. So at the point at which the rule is fired for the parent folder creation, the children have not yet actually been created - so the zero length array is correct. I suggest you try a rule that fires when each document is added and process each item in turn. It's annoying but it's amazing something as crazy as CIFS works in Java at all

Thanks,

Kevin

[leifuss]

Thanks again

I'll keep an eye out for 2.1E and in the meantime I'll try a polling approach with the directories and post back to the forum with how I get on.

L.