Getting or Setting Instance ID of a form - Without showing the form first

I have a need to create a new instance of a form, and having Orbeon return the instance ID of the form so that I can store this instance ID to later present the new form to a user for editing. Is there an HTTP GET or POST that allows me to do this - without ever rendering the form into the UI?

Also - can I set the instance ID of a new form, or should I generally relt on Orbeon to do that for my application?

Thanks

Ron,

When Orbeon Forms creates data in the database via the persistence
API, it always provides its own id. It's basically a hex hash of a
random number.

Now by "new instance of a form", do you mean a new form definition, or
new form data for a given form definition?

Also, I am unsure of your workflow here: which piece of software
creates what? How will the different parts be connected?

-Erik

On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Ron Schultz <[hidden email]> wrote:

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Erik,

When Orbeon Forms creates data in the database via the persistence
API, it always provides its own id. It's basically a hex hash of a
random number.

 - Understood

Now by "new instance of a form", do you mean a new form definition, or
new form data for a given form definition?

 - New form data for a given form definition

Also, I am unsure of your workflow here: which piece of software
creates what? How will the different parts be connected?

- My application is calling Orbeon, requesting that Orbeon create and persist a new instance of a form, from the form definition ID my application is passing to Orbeon. I am requesting that Orbeon return to me the ID of the just-created form 'instance', which I will cache and display to the user at a later point. My workflow is an application that is accumulating a set of checklists that will need to be completed at the end of the workflow. I have alternative workflows I can develop to get around this issue - but the workflow is simplified if I can create and store a form 'instance' without necessarily rendering it into the UI.

-Ron

You can just PUT an XML document to the persistence API and pick the
id yourself. The URLs look like this:

http://localhost:8080/orbeon/fr/service/persistence/crud/[APPLICATION_NAME]/[FORM_NAME]/data/[FORM_DATA_ID]/data.xml

or, with 3.9:

http://localhost:8080/orbeon/fr/service/exist/crud/[APPLICATION_NAME]/[FORM_NAME]/data/[FORM_DATA_ID]/data.xml

Just provide a sufficiently random id as document id. Orbeon Forms
uses this to produce random ids:

  digest(string(random(true)), 'MD5', 'hex')

-Erik


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