Publish form definition API

Availability

Since Orbeon Forms 2017.2.

This is an Orbeon Forms PE feature.

Internal uses

The API is also used internally by Form Builder and by the Form Runner Home page.

Purpose

The purpose of the publish API is to publish a form definition.

The form definition is:

either provided as XHTML+XForms in the Orbeon Forms form definition format
or stored in the database under the orbeon/builder app/form name

It is important to note that you cannot simply take a form definition and PUT it via the persistence REST API. The reason for this is that publishing requires adding some information to the form definition, such as:

data migration information for repeated grids
section templates must be included

Only Form Builder and Form Runner are able to provide this information consistently. So in order to publish a form definition, this API must be used.

Interface

If the form definition is provided in the request:

URL: /fr/service/publish
Optional URL parameter:
- Name: document-id
- Value: Form Builder document id for retrieval of attachments
Method: POST
Request body: XHTML+XForms

If the form definition is NOT provided in the request:

URL: /fr/service/orbeon/builder/publish/$document
- $document: Form Builder document id for retrieval of attachments
Method: POST
Request body: empty

The following URL parameters apply in both cases:

form-definition-version:
- missing: indicates the latest published version, or 1 if there is no published version
- next: to indicate that the form definition must be published under the next available version
- or a specific version number: to indicate that the form definition must replace the given version
available:
- when false: make or keep the form definition unavailable
- when true or missing: make or keep the form definition available
version-comment:
- when present, a versioning comment to store with the form definition
upgrade-form-definition:
- when true or missing: upgrade the form definition
- when false: do not upgrade the form definition
- This should usually be true or missing, in order to allow:
  - form definition update to the latest format
  - inclusion of data migration information
  - embedding of section templates
- See also Upgrading form definitions.

Response body:

Content-Type: application/xml
app/form name used

Example response body:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<response>
    <app>acme</app>
    <form>sales</form>
    <published-attachments>2</published-attachments>
    <published-version>1</published-version>
</response>

NOTE: When the form definition is POSTed as XML, form definition attachments such as PDF, XML Schema, or image attachments will not be published reliably if a document-id is not passed.

Example using curl

The following examples use the curl command-line utility. They are indented on multiple lines for clarity but in practice each command must be written on a single line.

Publish a form definition stored in Form Builder

The following publishes the form definition saved with Form Builder under the ef8b20715f447ef1ed6f2479161dc663b23f7cdc document id:

curl    \
-v      \
-k      \
-X POST \
"http://localhost:8080/orbeon\
/fr/service/orbeon/builder/publish\
/ef8b20715f447ef1ed6f2479161dc663b23f7cdc"

Publish a form definition provided via HTTP POST

The following publishes the form definition provided in the file form.xhtml:

curl                               \
-v                                 \
-k                                 \
-d @form.xhtml                     \
-H "Content-Type: application/xml" \
-X POST                            \
"http://localhost:8080/orbeon\
/fr/service/publish"

Permissions

The caller must either call the service internally or have authorized the service.
Appropriate container or permission headers must also be set to allow accessing the form definition and data.