Application Programmer's Interface
Edition 0.0.11, 2004-02-24
Copyright © 2002-2004 Free Software Foundation
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
In the API definition, we will make use of the following data type placeholders, which will have to be translated into appropriate data types for the various implemented RPC mechanisms:
| void | Data Type |
| This is used as the result type for functions that actually don't return a result. |
| boolean | Data Type |
| This is a boolean data type that can only hold TRUE or FALSE values. |
| integer | Data Type |
| This is an integer data type which must be able to contain signed 32 bit values. This restriction limits the maximum list size to more than 2 billion objects. |
| string | Data Type |
| This is a data type that must be able to hold variable lenght strings without length limitations. |
| stringlist | Data Type |
This is an one-dimensional array of elements of the type string.
Implementation may restrict the number of elements to 32767.
|
| stringtable | Data Type |
This is a two-dimensional array of elements of the type string.
Implementation may restrict the numer of columns as well as the number
of rows to 32767.
|
| session_id | Data Type |
| This is a 32 bit integer value identifying a session. There is no special meaning one could read from the value. |
| list_id | Data Type |
| This is a 32 bit integer value identifying a list. There is no special meaning one could read from the value. |
All API functions can raise exceptions on failure. All functions are atomic, in the sense that in case of an exception the function has no effect at all. No error in a function call can cause a function to be "half-done".
The exact syntax of the API functions is dependant on the selected RPC interface and the language sitting on top of it. However, we are describing the functions in a C-like syntax here, using the data type placeholders we defined above.
| session_id open (auth_parameters) | Function |
|
Opens a connection to Appserver using the given parameters for
authentication. The number and type of the parameters still have to
be decided. The return value is a handle to the session that has to
be passed to all subsequent function calls.
An Exception is raised if the server cannot be contacted or authentication fails. |
| void close (session_id session, boolean commit) | Function |
|
Closes the connection identified by session. If commit is
TRUE, an uncommitted transaction of this session is implicitly
committed; if commit is FALSE, it is implicitly rolled back.
After this call, session will no longer be a valid session
identifier.
An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier. |
| void commit (session_id session) | Function |
|
Commits the current transaction of session, making all changes
permanent.
An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier. |
| void rollback (session_id session) | Function |
Discards all changes done in session since the last commit
or rollback.
An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier. |
These functions provide a means for getting data for a list of objects fulfilling certain conditions.
| list_id request (session_id session, string classname, string conditions, stringlist sortorder, stringlist properties) | Function |
Requests a list of objects of class classname matching the
conditions. Appserver prepares to send the values of the properties
listed in properties on subsequent calls to fetch, where
the order of the objects is determined by the properties listed in
sort_order.
The properties in sort_order may, but need not appear in
properties.
classname, conditions, sort_order, and properties
must contain fully referenced identifiers for classes or properties.
This function only returns a list identifier. No actual data is passed over the network when calling this function. An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier, the requested class does not exist, the current user has not access to the requested class, or any of the given properties does not exist. |
| integer count (session_id session, list_id list) | Function |
Returns the number of objects contained in list, where list
is the return value of a previous call to request.
An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier or list is not a valid list identifier. |
| stringtable fetch (session_id session, list_id list, integer start, integer count, boolean close) | Function |
Returns a 2-dimensional array of data with count rows, where column 0
always holds the object_id of the object, and the remaining columns contain
the values for the properties defined in the previous call to request.
Negative values for start indicate position from the end of the list.
Negative values for count are invalid. Count may not be greater than
32767.
If close is TRUE, then the list is "closed", all server-side memory
allocated with the management of this list is freed and the id list
may no longer be used in calls to An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier or list is not a valid list identifier. |
These functions provide a means for reading, writing and deleting an object or a set of objects, as well as for calling a procedure for an object or a set of objects. However, the object_ids for the objects to operate upon have to be determined before these functions can be used, for example by using the list handling functions described above.
| stringtable load (session_id session, string classname, stringlist object_ids, stringlist properties) | Function |
Returns a 2-dimensional array of data with a row for every entry in
the object_ids list and a column for every entry in properties.
Unlike fetch, this function does not automatically return
the object_ids in column 0.
If this function is called with one of the object_ids being an empty string, the corresponding row in the result contains a list of the data types of the properties. This is a temporary hack and will be removed again in a future version! An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier, the requested class does not exist, the current user has not access to the requested class, any of the given object_ids does not exist, or any of the given properties does not exist. |
| stringlist store (session_id session, string classname, stringlist object_ids, stringlist properties, stringtable values) | Function |
Stores the data in values in the objects identified by object_ids.
Every row in values matches an entry in object_ids, while every
column matches an entry in properties.
Empty object ids indicate that new objects with that data should be created.
Validation is performed before the actual storing is done. If validation
of a single object fails, none of the objects are stored, but an exception
is raised.
This function returns a list of all object ids of the stored objects. This
is important for the caller to know under which object ids the new objects
have been stored and can be accessed from now on.
Note that after calling store, commit has to be called to make
the changes persistent, while a call to rollback can undo the changes.
An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier, the requested class does not exist, the current user has not access to the requested class, any of the given object_ids does not exist, any of the given properties does not exist, or any of the values does not fit the corresponding property. |
| void delete (session_id session, string classname, stringlist object_ids) | Function |
|
Deletes the objects of class classname identified through
object_ids.
An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier, the requested class does not exist, the current user has not access to the requested class, or any of the given object_ids does not exist. |
| stringlist call (session_id session, string classname, stringlist object_ids, string procedurename, stringlist parameters) | Function |
|
Calls the procedure procedurename for every object identified through
the object_ids and passes the same parameters to every call.
The number of entries in parameters must match the parameter count
of the procedure.
This function returns a list of strings that contains the results of the
procedure calls for each object.
An Exception is raised if session is not a valid session identifier, the requested class does not exist, the current user has not access to the requested class, any of the given object_ids does not exist, or the given procedure is not defined. |
The following classes are always defined and can be accessed to query and/or influence class definitions and (in future) other information about the state of the Application Server.
gnue_module
| gnue_name string(35) | Property of gnue_module |
| The name of the module. |
| gnue_comment string(70) | Property of gnue_module |
| Arbitary text explaining the purpose of the module. |
gnue_class
| gnue_module gnue_module | Property of gnue_class |
| The module that originally defines the class. |
| gnue_name string(35) | Property of gnue_class |
The name of the class without the module name. You can find out the module name
by referencing the gnue_module property.
|
| gnue_comment string(70) | Property of gnue_class |
| Arbitary text explaining the purpose of the class. |
gnue_property
| gnue_class gnue_class | Property of gnue_property |
| The class the property belongs to. |
| gnue_module gnue_module | Property of gnue_property |
| The module that defines the property. |
| gnue_name string(35) | Property of gnue_property |
The name of the property without the module name. You can find out the module
name by referencing the gnue_module property.
|
| gnue_type string(35) | Property of gnue_property |
| The type of the property. This can be one of the predefined types "string", "number", "boolean", "date", "time", or "datetime", or the name of a class, in which case the property is a reference property to that class. |
| gnue_length number(6) | Property of gnue_property |
The length of the property. Only relevant if gnue_type is "string" or
"number".
|
| gnue_scale number(4) | Property of gnue_property |
Only relevant if gnue_type is "number", in which case it defines the
number of fractional digits, while gnue_length defines the total number
of digits.
|
| gnue_comment string(70) | Property of gnue_property |
| Arbitary text explaining the purpose of the property. |
gnue_procedure
| gnue_class gnue_class | Property of gnue_procedure |
| The class the property belongs to. |
| gnue_module gnue_module | Property of gnue_procedure |
| The module that defines the property. |
| gnue_name string(35) | Property of gnue_procedure |
The name of the property without the module name. You can find out the module
name by referencing the gnue_module property.
|
| gnue_language string(10) | Property of gnue_procedure |
| Language of the procedure. Currently only "python" is valid. |
| gnue_code string | Property of gnue_procedure |
| The source code of the procedure. |
| gnue_comment string(70) | Property of gnue_property |
| Arbitary text explaining the purpose of the procedure. |
gnue_useraccessNote: This class is only preliminary and will most probably disappear in future and be replaced by a more flexible access control system.
| gnue_username string(20) | Property of gnue_useraccess |
| gnue_password string(20) | Property of gnue_useraccess |
| gnue_classlist string(100) | Property of gnue_useraccess |
| A list of the fully qualified names of all classes the user should have access to, seperated by blanks. |
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boolean: Data Types
call: API Functions
close: API Functions
commit: API Functions
count: API Functions
delete: API Functions
fetch: API Functions
integer: Data Types
list_id: Data Types
load: API Functions
open: API Functions
request: API Functions
rollback: API Functions
session_id: Data Types
store: API Functions
string: Data Types
stringlist: Data Types
stringtable: Data Types
void: Data Types