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File Poller

Process Starter

The File Poller process starter polls for files or directories with the given name and starts a process when the specified change (creation, modification, deletion) is detected.

Configuration

The Configuration tab has the following fields.

Field	Global Var?	Description
Name	No	The name to appear as the label for the activity in the process definition.
Description	No	Short description of the activity.
File Name	Yes	The path and name of the file or directory to monitor. Use the Browse button to locate an existing file. You can also use wildcards to monitor a directory for files that match the given specification. For example, C:\files\*.log would match any change to a file in the files directory with an extension of .log.
Polling Interval (sec)	Yes	Polling interval (in seconds) to check for the specified file.
Include Existing Files	No	Check for the file among the files that existed before the process engine started running. When this field is checked, if an existing file matches the specification in the File Name field when a process engine starts, then a new process instance is created. If this field is not checked, any existing files that match the specification in the File Name field are ignored until there is a change in the file.
Exclude File Content	No	Specifies not to load the data from the file into this activity’s output. If this check box is selected, the contents of the file are not available to subsequent activities in the process definition.
Content as	Yes	The type of content in the file. Can be either text or binary.
Encoding	Yes	The character encoding for the file (when text is specified in the Content as field).

Advanced

The Advanced tab has the following fields.

Field	Global Var?	Description
Poll for Create Events	No	Checking this field starts a new process when a file or directory matching the specification in the File Name field is created. If this field is unchecked, newly created files/directories are ignored.
Poll for Modify Events	No	Checking this field starts a new process when a file or directory matching the specification in the File Name field is modified. If this field is unchecked, modifications to files/directories are ignored.
Poll for Delete Events	No	Checking this field starts a new process when a file or directory matching the specification in the File Name field is deleted. If this field is unchecked, deletions of files/directories are ignored.
Include Sub-Directories	No	When this field is checked, events that occur in subdirectories of the specified directory are also monitored. If this field is unchecked, only the directory is monitored, any subdirectories are ignored.
Mode	No	Specifies the type of polling to perform. Specify one of the following: • only-directories — only tracks the specified changes for directories. • only-files — only tracks the specified changes for files. • files-and-directories — tracks the specified changes for both files and directories.
Sort By	No	Specifies the order in which files should be processed, if more than one file is detected. You can sort by file name, modification date, or specify no sorting is to be performed. Files are processed as the polling interval occurs. Therefore, the Sort By field applies to all files that have changed since the last polling interval. The Sort By field can be very useful if you want to process files in a specific order when the process engine starts and the Include Existing Files field is checked (then all existing files are processed in the specified order). Note: The File Poller starts process instances based on the specified Sort By order, but the process instances may not complete in the same order. If you want to guarantee that processes start and complete in a given order, you must specify Max Jobs = 1 and enable the Activatation Limit field when you deploy your project. See TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks Administration for more information about deploying projects.
Sort Order	No	Specifies whether the order specified in the Sort By field is ascending or descending. This field is only applicable if File Name or Date Modified is selected in the Sort By field.

Misc

The Misc tab contains the following fields:

Field	Description
Sequencing Key	This field can contain an XPath expression that specifies which processes should run in order. Process instances with sequencing keys that evaluate to the same value will be executed sequentially in the order the process instance was created. See TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks Process Design for more information about controlling the execution order of process instances and about XPath expressions.
Custom Id	This field can contain an XPath expression that specifies a custom ID for the process instance. This ID is displayed in the View Service dialog of TIBCO Administrator, and it is also available in the $_processContext process variable.

Output

The output for the activity is the following.

Output Item	Datatype	Description
action	string	The event that occurred to trigger the File Poller activity. The possible values are: create, remove, or modify.
timeOccured	integer	The time that the File Poller activity detected the change in the file. The time is expressed as the amount of time, in milliseconds since midnight, January 1, 1970, UTC.
fileInfo	complex	Element containing the fileName, location, type, readProtected, writeProtected, and size data.
fullName	string	The name of the file, including the path information.
fileName	string	The name of the file without the path information.
location	string	The path to the file.
configuredFileName	string	The name of the file or directory this activity is configured to operate on.
type	string	The file type.
readProtected	boolean	Whether the file is read-protected.
writeProtected	boolean	Whether the file is write-protected.
size	integer	Size of the file in bytes.
lastModified	string	Time stamp indicating when the file was last modified.
fileContent	complex	Element containing the textContent and binaryContent data.
textContent	string	Contents of the file (text files), if the Exclude File Contents field is not checked on the Configuration tab.
binaryContent	binary	Contents of the file (binary files), if the Exclude File Contents field is not checked on the Configuration tab.
encoding	string	The character encoding for the file.

Copyright © Cloud Software Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved