Identifiers

The identifiers fetch action retrieves a list of items that are present in the repository and returns an identifier for each item. This action can be used by front end applications for providing an interface to browse a repository. You can use the identifiers that are returned by this action in other connector actions that require you to identify items in the repository.

TIP:

The identifiers fetch action does not expand container files, and does not provide identifiers for sub-files.

Type: Asynchronous

Parameter Name Description Required
Config A base-64 encoded configuration. The configuration parameters that are set override the same parameters in the connector's configuration file. No
ConfigSection The name of the configuration file section that contains the task settings. Yes
ContainersOnly A Boolean value (default false) that specifies whether to return only those items that represent containers. No
FilterTypes A comma-separated list of the types of items to return identifiers for. If you omit this parameter, the action returns items of all types. No
Identifiers A comma-separated list of identifiers. The action returns identifiers (and status information if supported) for these items and their ancestors, but does not return descendant items (to do this, set the ParentIdentifiers parameter instead). Set this parameter or ParentIdentifiers
IdentifiersAction The name of an action to perform on the returned identifiers. Only the collect fetch action is available. If the action you specify would require additional parameters, specify them as parameters to this action. No
MaxDepth The maximum depth that the connector crawls in the repository (from ParentIdentifiers). The default maximum depth is 1. To specify no limit, set this parameter to 0 (zero). Be aware that if you increase the maximum depth or specify an unlimited maximum depth, the action could take a long time to complete. No
ParentIdentifiers A comma-separated list of identifiers. The action returns identifiers (and status information if supported) for these items, and for ancestors and descendants of these items. To specify the root of the repository, set this parameter to ROOT. Set this parameter or Identifiers
ShowAncestors A Boolean value (default true) that specifies whether to return the identifiers of ancestors for items specified by ParentIdentifiers or Identifiers. The action returns parent items up to the root of the repository. No
ShowAttributes A Boolean value (default true) that specifies whether to show attributes in the response. No
ShowDocStatus A Boolean value (default false) that specifies whether to show status information. This can include the ingestion status for each document and the modification history for items in the repository. No
ShowMetadata

A comma-separated list of basic metadata fields to return for each item. You can set this parameter to a comma-separated list of the following values:

  • createdDate - the date when the item was created.
  • modifiedDate - the date when them was last modified.
  • sizeBytes - the size of the item in bytes.

If you omit this parameter the connector does not return metadata. This feature is not supported by all connectors, and some platforms, repositories, or items might not support all of the metadata fields.

No
ShowNames A Boolean value (default true) that specifies whether the response shows a display name for each item (if one is available). No
ShowTypes A Boolean value (default true) that specifies whether the response shows the type of item that each identifier represents. No
Override_Config_Parameters

Any other action parameters that you set override settings in the connector's configuration file. For example:

/action=fetch&fetchaction=...
&[Section]Parameter=Value

where [Section] (optional) is the name of a configuration file section, Parameter is the name of a configuration parameter, and Value is the parameter value.

No

Example

The following example sends the identifiers fetch action to the connector. The connector returns the items that it finds by crawling from the root of the repository to a maximum depth of two levels:

http://localhost:7002/action=Fetch&FetchAction=Identifiers
                                  &ConfigSection=MyTask
                                  &ParentIdentifiers=ROOT
                                  &MaxDepth=2
                                  &ShowDocStatus=False

Response

The fetch action is asynchronous, so it returns a token. You can use the token with the QueueInfo action to retrieve the response.

<autnresponse>
  <action>QUEUEINFO</action>
  <response>SUCCESS</response>
  <responsedata>
    <actions>
      <action>
        <status>Finished</status>
        ...
        <documentcounts>
          <documentcount errors="0" seen="3" task="MYTASK"/>
        </documentcounts>
        <fetchaction>IDENTIFIERS</fetchaction>
        <identifiers parent_identifier="ROOT">
          <identifier attributes="container" name="C:\MyFiles" type="Directory">identifier1</identifier>
        </identifiers>
        <identifiers parent_identifier="identifier1" descendant="true">
          <identifier attributes="container" name="MyFolder" type="Directory">identifier2</identifier>
          <identifier attributes="document" name="File.txt" type="File">identifier3</identifier>
        </identifiers>
        <token>...</token>
      </action>
    </actions>
  </responsedata>
</autnresponse>

The response contains an <identifiers parent_identifier="..."> element for each of the identifiers passed to the action in the ParentIdentifiers or Identifiers action parameter. If you use the ParentIdentifiers action parameter and set the MaxDepth action parameter to a value greater than 1, the response also contains an <identifiers parent_identifier="..."> element for descendant items that have child identifiers, down to the requested depth. The parent_identifier attribute specifies the identifier of the item. These elements can also include the following attributes:

Each <identifiers parent_identifier="..."> element contains <identifier ...> elements for items that are direct descendants of the parent item. An <identifier ...> element provides the following attributes:

The identifiers action for the File System Connector can return the following types:

Type Possible Attributes Description Display Name Child Identifier Types
Directory container A folder in the file system. The folder path when the parent identifier is the root of the repository. Otherwise, the folder name. Directory, File
File document A file in the file system. The file name.  

An <identifiers parent_identifier="..."> or <identifier ...> element can include the following attributes that describe the status of the item. Some or all of these attributes can be omitted if the information is not available.

Read the Document Modification History

The attributes modified_history and attributesmodified_history contain strings where each character represents a time duration.

To convert a character into a time duration:

  1. Convert the character to an integer, n, (0 to 61) by the position in this string: 0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.
  2. Calculate using floating point arithmetic (13/9)n.
  3. Read the resulting number as a number of seconds giving the minimum duration. Due to rounding the actual value will be in the range (13/9)n to (13/9)(n+1).

For example, to read "F":


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