Basics

When using GET and PUT to deal with resources, the body of HTTP requests contains the resource to handle.

• GET

  • The request body is empty and response body contains resource.

  • [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.5] The Orbeon-Operations response header lists the operations that the user can perform on the data (see Supporting permissions in your persistence API implementation).

  • [SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.5] If the implementation of the persistence API supports form versioning, and the request is for a form definition, the Orbeon-Form-Definition-Version request header tells which version of the form definition is requested.

• PUT

  • The request body contains the resource to store.

  • The Content-Type must contain the content-type of the resource to store. For XML in particular, pass application/xml.

  • The request response is empty.

  • If your implementation of the persistence API supports form versioning, then when storing a new document, you need to tell the persistence what version of the form definition was used to create this data, so the same version can then be used to subsequently edit the data. This is done by specifying the version in the Orbeon-Form-Definition-Version header.

• DELETE

  • Both request and response bodies are empty.

When the resource is an XML file (e.g. form.xhtml, data.xml), the persistence layer must return an appropriate XML content-type: application/xml, or application/xhtml+xml.

Examples 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.

The service must be open for these examples to work. See Authorization of pages and services.

The general format of the a path to access form data is:

/fr/service/persistence/crud/$app/$form/(data|draft)/$doc/data.xml

So with the following assumptions:

• app name ($app): acme

• form name ($form): order

• document id ($doc): fc4c32532e8d35a2d0b84e2cf076bb070e9c1e8e

then you can PUT form data as follows:

curl
  -v
  -k
  -d @mydata.xml
  -H "Content-Type: application/xml"
  -H "Orbeon-Form-Definition-Version: 1"
  -X PUT
  http://localhost:8080/orbeon/fr/service/persistence/crud/acme/order/data/fc4c32532e8d35a2d0b84e2cf076bb070e9c1e8e/data.xml

The following retrieves the data (the GET method is used implicitly by curl):

curl 
  -v 
  -k 
  -H "Orbeon-Form-Definition-Version: 1" 
  http://localhost:8080/orbeon/fr/service/persistence/crud/acme/order/data/fc4c32532e8d35a2d0b84e2cf076bb070e9c1e8e/data.xml

The same API is used by Form Builder to store in-progress (unpublished) form definitions under the orbeon/builder app/form names. So with the following assumptions:

• app name ($app): orbeon

• form name ($form): builder

• document id ($doc): 7b55c9d6f9b058376293e61d9f0d4442e379f717

then you can PUT a form definition so that it's available to Form Builder:

curl
  -v
  -k
  -d @mydata.xml
  -H "Content-Type: application/xml"
  -H "Orbeon-Form-Definition-Version: 1"
  -X PUT
  http://localhost:8080/orbeon/fr/service/persistence/crud/orbeon/builder/data/7b55c9d6f9b058376293e61d9f0d4442e379f717/data.xml

The following retrieves the form definition (the GET method is used implicitly):

curl 
  -v 
  -k 
  -H "Orbeon-Form-Definition-Version: 1" 
  http://localhost:8080/orbeon/fr/service/persistence/crud/orbeon/builder/data/7b55c9d6f9b058376293e61d9f0d4442e379f717/data.xml

URL parameters

Supported by the persistence implementation

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 2017.1]

• nonrelevant

  • when using GET for data only

  • values

    • remove: remove all XML data elements with attribute fr:relevant="false"

    • keep: [SINCE Orbeon Forms 2018.1] do not remove XML data elements

    • missing: do not remove XML data elements

NOTE: This property only operates properly on data stored with Orbeon Forms 2017.1 and newer, as only Orbeon Forms 2017.1 and newer stores data with the fr:relevant="false" annotation.

Passed by Form Runner

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.2]

The following URL parameters are set by Form Runner:

• valid

  • passed when data is stored using PUT only

  • values

    • true: data sent satisfies validation rules

    • false: data sent does not satisfy validation rules

This allows a persistence implementation to store this information if desired.

Example:

http://example.org/orbeon/fr/service/persistence/crud/
    orbeon/
    bookshelf/
    data/891ce63e59c17348f6fda273afe28c2b/data.xml?
    valid=true

Publishing from Form Builder

When you create, edit, or read form definition with Form Builder, form definitions are stored as Form Builder data. That is, they are stored under:

/crud/orbeon/builder/data/[FORM_DATA_ID]

On the other hand, when Form Builder publishes a form definition, it stores it where Form Runner will find it, that is under:

/crud/[APPLICATION_NAME]/[FORM_NAME]/form

For example, this is what happens when saving and publishing a form definition acme/order with a single attachment:

Save:

• PUT /crud/orbeon/builder/data/7b55c9d6f9b058376293e61d9f0d4442e379f717/a29fd47011b2957ef44a62d92995adfdbae03fa9.bin

• PUT /crud/orbeon/builder/data/7b55c9d6f9b058376293e61d9f0d4442e379f717/data.xml

Publish:

• PUT /crud/acme/order/form/a29fd47011b2957ef44a62d92995adfdbae03fa9.bin

• PUT /crud/acme/order/form/form.xhtml?document=7b55c9d6f9b058376293e61d9f0d4442e379f717

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.6]

When Form Builder publishes a form definition, if versioning is supported by the target persistence layer, it passes a Orbeon-Form-Definition-Version header with values:

• 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

Deleting all data for an existing form

To remove all instances of form data, issue a DELETE to:

/crud/[APPLICATION_NAME]/[FORM_NAME]/data/