Including multiple external instances

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me with the following problem.

I need to be able to include multiple instances in a view.

Currently my view includes it's main instance like this:

        <xforms:instance id="text">
                <xi:include href="input:instance"/>
            </xforms:instance>

Which works fine, but I need to include possibly several other instances, which are externally produced (i.e. generated dynamically)

Ideally I need something along the lines of:

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="generate-instance.xpl"/>

This doesn't work (I didn't really expect it to :) ), so the solution that seems to be the best way would be to call an external servlet

which will produce the instance as an xml document.

So far we have been able to get the following to work:

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="http://localhost:8080/oip-forms-viewer/servletToGenerateInstance"/>

Unfortunately we have not been able to get this to work when not using an absolute URL i.e. The following doesn't work

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="/servletToGenerateInstance"/>

Even though it should from what I can see in the documentation. The question is, why doesn't the above work?

More generally what is the best way for me to include several dynamically generated external instances in my view?

Preferably without going to an external servlet, but if we have to go to an external servlet, we need access to the same HttpServetRequet object that the

OPS servlet has, how can this be done?

I hope there is a simple way of accomlishing what we require, would appreciate input from anyone.

Thanks,

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Skorkin [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 11:24 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me with the following problem.

I need to be able to include multiple instances in a view.

Currently my view includes it's main instance like this:

        <xforms:instance id="text">
                <xi:include href="input:instance"/>
            </xforms:instance>

Which works fine, but I need to include possibly several other instances, which are externally produced (i.e. generated dynamically)

Ideally I need something along the lines of:

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="generate-instance.xpl"/>

This doesn't work (I didn't really expect it to :) ), so the solution that seems to be the best way would be to call an external servlet

which will produce the instance as an xml document.

So far we have been able to get the following to work:

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="http://localhost:8080/oip-forms-viewer/servletToGenerateInstance"/>

Unfortunately we have not been able to get this to work when not using an absolute URL i.e. The following doesn't work

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="/servletToGenerateInstance"/>

Even though it should from what I can see in the documentation. The question is, why doesn't the above work?

More generally what is the best way for me to include several dynamically generated external instances in my view?

Preferably without going to an external servlet, but if we have to go to an external servlet, we need access to the same HttpServetRequet object that the

OPS servlet has, how can this be done?

I hope there is a simple way of accomlishing what we require, would appreciate input from anyone.

Thanks,

Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Skorkin [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 11:24 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me with the following problem.

I need to be able to include multiple instances in a view.

Currently my view includes it's main instance like this:

        <xforms:instance id="text">
                <xi:include href="input:instance"/>
            </xforms:instance>

Which works fine, but I need to include possibly several other instances, which are externally produced (i.e. generated dynamically)

Ideally I need something along the lines of:

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="generate-instance.xpl"/>

This doesn't work (I didn't really expect it to :) ), so the solution that seems to be the best way would be to call an external servlet

which will produce the instance as an xml document.

So far we have been able to get the following to work:

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="http://localhost:8080/oip-forms-viewer/servletToGenerateInstance"/>

Unfortunately we have not been able to get this to work when not using an absolute URL i.e. The following doesn't work

        <xforms:instance id="other" src="/servletToGenerateInstance"/>

Even though it should from what I can see in the documentation. The question is, why doesn't the above work?

More generally what is the best way for me to include several dynamically generated external instances in my view?

Preferably without going to an external servlet, but if we have to go to an external servlet, we need access to the same HttpServetRequet object that the

OPS servlet has, how can this be done?

I hope there is a simple way of accomlishing what we require, would appreciate input from anyone.

Thanks,

Alan

Thanks Erik,

I'll give this a go!

-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Bruchez [[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 11:06 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances

Alan Skorkin wrote:

 > I need to be able to include multiple instances in a view.
 >
 > Currently my view includes it's main instance like this:
 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="text">
 >                 <xi:include href="input:instance"/>
 >             </xforms:instance>
 >
 > Which works fine, but I need to include possibly several other  > instances, which are externally produced (i.e. generated  > dynamically)  >  > Ideally I need something along the lines of:

 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other" src="generate-instance.xpl"/>
 >
 > This doesn't work (I didn't really expect it to :) )

It is important to realize why it doesn't work: the "src" attribute contains a URL, relative or not. As explained in another email regarding xforms:submission/@action, the URL is resolved against xml:base attributes and if none, against the URL used to request the page.

So technically, using "generate-instance.xpl" is not illegal, but you will have to match that in your page flow to get results, create a model that extracts the name from the URL, loads and execute the pipeline, etc. Some work to do!

 > So far we have been able to get the following to work:
 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other"
 > src="http://localhost:8080/oip-forms-viewer/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
 >
 > Unfortunately we have not been able to get this to work when not using  > an absolute URL i.e. The following doesn't work  >

 >         <xforms:instance id="other" src="/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
 >
 > Even though it should from what I can see in the documentation. The  > question is, why doesn't the above work?

This should work. Without more information, I cannot say why it doesn't in your case.

 > More generally what is the best way for me to include several  > dynamically generated external instances in my view?

 > Preferably without going to an external servlet, but if we have to  > go to an external servlet, we need access to the same  > HttpServetRequet object that the OPS servlet has, how can this be  > done?

The PFC follows a Model-View-Controller architecture. You can leverage that capability, i.e.:

o your page model provides the initial XForms instances o your page view includes these XForms instances

So create a page model that calls the XPL files that produce these instances, and then aggregate them with something like:

   <p:processor name="oxf:identity">
       <p:input name="data="aggregate('root', #instance1, #instance2, #instance3)"/>
       <p:output name="data" ref="data"/>
   </p:processor>

Then make sure your page view is an XSLT view (xsl:version="2.0 attribute on the root), and include instances as follows:

   <xforms:instance id="instance1">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[1]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance2">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[2]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance3">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[3]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

Ideally, you could also use XInclude to do this, but this would require support for the element() and/or xpointer() schemes which is not available at the moment.

-Erik

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Skorkin [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 8:24 PM
To: '[hidden email]'
Subject: RE: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances

Thanks Erik,

I'll give this a go!

-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Bruchez [[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 11:06 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances

Alan Skorkin wrote:

 > I need to be able to include multiple instances in a view.
 >
 > Currently my view includes it's main instance like this:
 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="text">
 >                 <xi:include href="input:instance"/>
 >             </xforms:instance>
 >
 > Which works fine, but I need to include possibly several other  > instances, which are externally produced (i.e. generated  > dynamically)  >  > Ideally I need something along the lines of:

 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other" src="generate-instance.xpl"/>
 >
 > This doesn't work (I didn't really expect it to :) )

It is important to realize why it doesn't work: the "src" attribute contains a URL, relative or not. As explained in another email regarding xforms:submission/@action, the URL is resolved against xml:base attributes and if none, against the URL used to request the page.

So technically, using "generate-instance.xpl" is not illegal, but you will have to match that in your page flow to get results, create a model that extracts the name from the URL, loads and execute the pipeline, etc. Some work to do!

 > So far we have been able to get the following to work:
 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other"
 > src="http://localhost:8080/oip-forms-viewer/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
 >
 > Unfortunately we have not been able to get this to work when not using  > an absolute URL i.e. The following doesn't work  >

 >         <xforms:instance id="other" src="/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
 >
 > Even though it should from what I can see in the documentation. The  > question is, why doesn't the above work?

This should work. Without more information, I cannot say why it doesn't in your case.

 > More generally what is the best way for me to include several  > dynamically generated external instances in my view?

 > Preferably without going to an external servlet, but if we have to  > go to an external servlet, we need access to the same  > HttpServetRequet object that the OPS servlet has, how can this be  > done?

The PFC follows a Model-View-Controller architecture. You can leverage that capability, i.e.:

o your page model provides the initial XForms instances o your page view includes these XForms instances

So create a page model that calls the XPL files that produce these instances, and then aggregate them with something like:

   <p:processor name="oxf:identity">
       <p:input name="data="aggregate('root', #instance1, #instance2, #instance3)"/>
       <p:output name="data" ref="data"/>
   </p:processor>

Then make sure your page view is an XSLT view (xsl:version="2.0 attribute on the root), and include instances as follows:

   <xforms:instance id="instance1">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[1]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance2">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[2]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance3">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[3]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

Ideally, you could also use XInclude to do this, but this would require support for the element() and/or xpointer() schemes which is not available at the moment.

-Erik

I gues it was the same advice, it was just a littl more confusing.  I
was following this thread because I have the same problem.

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Braman [[hidden email]] 
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 9:13 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: RE: [ops-users] Including multiple external
instances/xform:model location in document?


I understand that,  I am just saying that this advice differed from the
advice Erik gave Alan Skorkin (see message reproduced at bottom).  I
think Alan was just trying to accomplish the same thing as Pascal, and
your solution makes more sense, to me at least.

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Alessandro Vernet
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 9:21 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Including multiple external
instances/xform:model location in document?


Richard,

To clarify (if at all needed!):

If you don't put a scheme in the URI you have in the <xforms:instance
src="...">, the URI is relative to the current page, so it will be as is
you were requesting this from the browser, which means that your request
will hit the page flow controller. This is typically useful when you
want to generate an instance dynamically and that you can write the
logic to generate that instance in an XPL file.

Using a URI of the form oxf:/... is also possible and is typically
useful when the instance is static and stored in a separate file.

Alex

On 3/2/06, Richard Braman [hidden email] wrote:
  

Wasnt Pascals question this the same baisc question being asked by
Alan Skorkin?

The answers given by you and Erik were different, but your sounds
better

Also I remember having a problem with using src="path".  I was
directed to use src="oxf:path/to/file

but putting it into the page flow seems much easier


Alex wrote:

It looks like you want to load an instance dynamically when the page
is loaded instead of having it defined statically in the XHTML + 
XForms file. To do this, you don't need to write any JavaScript. Isn't
    

that good news? :)

See for instance the XForms Internationalization example. In
i18n-form.xhtml, you will see: <xforms:instance id="i18n" 
src="i18n-resources"/>. This will load the instance from the 
"i18n-resources". This is a relative URI which runs i18n-resources.xpl
    

because there is a <page path-info="/xforms-i18n/i18n-resources"

model="i18n-resources.xpl"/> in the page flow.


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Skorkin [[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 8:24 PM
To: '[hidden email]'
Subject: RE: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances



Thanks Erik,

I'll give this a go!

-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Bruchez [[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 11:06 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances

Alan Skorkin wrote:

 > I need to be able to include multiple instances in a view.  >  > 
Currently my view includes it's main instance like this:  >
 >         <xforms:instance id="text">
 >                 <xi:include href="input:instance"/>
 >             </xforms:instance>
 >
 > Which works fine, but I need to include possibly several other  >
instances, which are externally produced (i.e. generated  >
    

dynamically)  >
  

Ideally I need something along the lines of:
      

 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other" src="generate-instance.xpl"/>
 >
 > This doesn't work (I didn't really expect it to :) )

It is important to realize why it doesn't work: the "src" attribute
    

contains
  

a URL, relative or not. As explained in another email regarding 
xforms:submission/@action, the URL is resolved against <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="xml:base">xml:base
    

attributes
  

and if none, against the URL used to request the page.

So technically, using "generate-instance.xpl" is not illegal, but you
    

will
  

have to match that in your page flow to get results, create a model
    

that
  

extracts the name from the URL, loads and execute the pipeline, etc.
    

Some
  

work to do!

 > So far we have been able to get the following to work:
 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other"
 >

    

src="http://localhost:8080/oip-forms-viewer/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
  

 >
 > Unfortunately we have not been able to get this to work when not
    

using  >
  

an absolute URL i.e. The following doesn't work  >

 >         <xforms:instance id="other"
src="/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
 >
 > Even though it should from what I can see in the documentation. The

question is, why doesn't the above work?

This should work. Without more information, I cannot say why it
    

doesn't in
  

your case.

 > More generally what is the best way for me to include several  > 
dynamically generated external instances in my view?

 > Preferably without going to an external servlet, but if we have to 
go to an external servlet, we need access to the same  > 
HttpServetRequet object that the OPS servlet has, how can this be  > 
done?

The PFC follows a Model-View-Controller architecture. You can leverage
    

that
  

capability, i.e.:

o your page model provides the initial XForms instances o your page
    

view
  

includes these XForms instances

So create a page model that calls the XPL files that produce these 
instances, and then aggregate them with something like:

   <p:processor name="oxf:identity">
       <p:input name="data="aggregate('root', #instance1, #instance2, 
#instance3)"/>
       <p:output name="data" ref="data"/>
   </p:processor>

Then make sure your page view is an XSLT view (xsl:version="2.0
    

attribute on
  

the root), and include instances as follows:

   <xforms:instance id="instance1">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[1]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance2">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[2]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance3">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[3]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

Ideally, you could also use XInclude to do this, but this would
    

require
  

support for the element() and/or xpointer() schemes which is not
    

available
  

at the moment.

-Erik

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I gues it was the same advice, it was just a littl more confusing.  I
was following this thread because I have the same problem.

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Braman [[hidden email]] 
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 9:13 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: RE: [ops-users] Including multiple external
instances/xform:model location in document?


I understand that,  I am just saying that this advice differed from the
advice Erik gave Alan Skorkin (see message reproduced at bottom).  I
think Alan was just trying to accomplish the same thing as Pascal, and
your solution makes more sense, to me at least.

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Alessandro Vernet
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 9:21 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Including multiple external
instances/xform:model location in document?


Richard,

To clarify (if at all needed!):

If you don't put a scheme in the URI you have in the <xforms:instance
src="...">, the URI is relative to the current page, so it will be as is
you were requesting this from the browser, which means that your request
will hit the page flow controller. This is typically useful when you
want to generate an instance dynamically and that you can write the
logic to generate that instance in an XPL file.

Using a URI of the form oxf:/... is also possible and is typically
useful when the instance is static and stored in a separate file.

Alex

On 3/2/06, Richard Braman [hidden email] wrote:
  

Wasnt Pascals question this the same baisc question being asked by
Alan Skorkin?

The answers given by you and Erik were different, but your sounds
better

Also I remember having a problem with using src="path".  I was
directed to use src="oxf:path/to/file

but putting it into the page flow seems much easier


Alex wrote:

It looks like you want to load an instance dynamically when the page
is loaded instead of having it defined statically in the XHTML + 
XForms file. To do this, you don't need to write any JavaScript. Isn't
    

that good news? :)

See for instance the XForms Internationalization example. In
i18n-form.xhtml, you will see: <xforms:instance id="i18n" 
src="i18n-resources"/>. This will load the instance from the 
"i18n-resources". This is a relative URI which runs i18n-resources.xpl
    

because there is a <page path-info="/xforms-i18n/i18n-resources"

model="i18n-resources.xpl"/> in the page flow.


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Skorkin [[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 8:24 PM
To: '[hidden email]'
Subject: RE: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances



Thanks Erik,

I'll give this a go!

-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Bruchez [[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 11:06 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [ops-users] Including multiple external instances

Alan Skorkin wrote:

 > I need to be able to include multiple instances in a view.  >  > 
Currently my view includes it's main instance like this:  >
 >         <xforms:instance id="text">
 >                 <xi:include href="input:instance"/>
 >             </xforms:instance>
 >
 > Which works fine, but I need to include possibly several other  >
instances, which are externally produced (i.e. generated  >
    

dynamically)  >
  

Ideally I need something along the lines of:
      

 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other" src="generate-instance.xpl"/>
 >
 > This doesn't work (I didn't really expect it to :) )

It is important to realize why it doesn't work: the "src" attribute
    

contains
  

a URL, relative or not. As explained in another email regarding 
xforms:submission/@action, the URL is resolved against <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="xml:base">xml:base
    

attributes
  

and if none, against the URL used to request the page.

So technically, using "generate-instance.xpl" is not illegal, but you
    

will
  

have to match that in your page flow to get results, create a model
    

that
  

extracts the name from the URL, loads and execute the pipeline, etc.
    

Some
  

work to do!

 > So far we have been able to get the following to work:
 >
 >         <xforms:instance id="other"
 >

    

src="http://localhost:8080/oip-forms-viewer/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
  

 >
 > Unfortunately we have not been able to get this to work when not
    

using  >
  

an absolute URL i.e. The following doesn't work  >

 >         <xforms:instance id="other"
src="/servletToGenerateInstance"/>
 >
 > Even though it should from what I can see in the documentation. The

question is, why doesn't the above work?

This should work. Without more information, I cannot say why it
    

doesn't in
  

your case.

 > More generally what is the best way for me to include several  > 
dynamically generated external instances in my view?

 > Preferably without going to an external servlet, but if we have to 
go to an external servlet, we need access to the same  > 
HttpServetRequet object that the OPS servlet has, how can this be  > 
done?

The PFC follows a Model-View-Controller architecture. You can leverage
    

that
  

capability, i.e.:

o your page model provides the initial XForms instances o your page
    

view
  

includes these XForms instances

So create a page model that calls the XPL files that produce these 
instances, and then aggregate them with something like:

   <p:processor name="oxf:identity">
       <p:input name="data="aggregate('root', #instance1, #instance2, 
#instance3)"/>
       <p:output name="data" ref="data"/>
   </p:processor>

Then make sure your page view is an XSLT view (xsl:version="2.0
    

attribute on
  

the root), and include instances as follows:

   <xforms:instance id="instance1">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[1]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance2">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[2]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

   <xforms:instance id="instance3">
     <xsl:copy-of select="/*/*[3]"/>
   </xforms:instance>

Ideally, you could also use XInclude to do this, but this would
    

require
  

support for the element() and/or xpointer() schemes which is not
    

available
  

at the moment.

-Erik

--
You receive this message as a subscriber of the
    

[hidden email]
  

mailing list.
To unsubscribe: [hidden email]
For general help: [hidden email]
ObjectWeb mailing lists service home page:
    

http://www.objectweb.org/wws
  

--
Blog (XML, Web apps, Open Source):
http://www.orbeon.com/blog/





  

--
You receive this message as a subscriber of the [hidden email] mailing list.
To unsubscribe: [hidden email]
For general help: [hidden email]
ObjectWeb mailing lists service home page: http://www.objectweb.org/wws