Client fields schema

The Submit point and Checkpoint tools pickup metadata fields entered by the SwitchClient user when submitting or routing a job.

Specifically, when a user submits a job and the list of field definitions in the Submit point's "Metadata fields" property is nonempty, the Submit point:


Similarly, when a user routes a job residing in a Checkpoint and the list of editable field definitions in the Checkpoint's "Metadata fields" property is nonempty, the Checkpoint creates a metadata dataset and associates it with the job's job ticket under the specified dataset name.

Note that a Checkpoint always creates a completely new dataset, i.e. it does not update or modify an existing dataset (even if the job was previously moved through the same or another Checkpoint). If the job already has dataset association with the same name, the reference to the old dataset is removed and replaced by the new one.

Data model and schema

The client fields dataset uses the XML data model with a simple schema without namespaces.

The XML document element name is "field-list". It contains a "field" element for each item in the list of editable metadata field definitions associated with the Submit point or Checkpoint under consideration. The "field" elements occur in the same order as in the list of field definitions, and a "field" element is present even if the corresponding field's value is empty.

Each "field" element in turn contains zero or one occurrence of each element listed in the table below. Within the contents of those child elements leading and trailing white space is removed.

Element name

Description of element contents

Element is present

tag

The field name; in the current implementation this is equal to the human-readable field label

Always

type

The field's data type; that is, "boolean", "string" or "choice"

Always

format

A regular expression that matches the values allowed for the field (relevant only if data type is string)

If type is string and if regexp is not blank

required

Equals "true" if the user is required to enter a non-blank value, "false" otherwise (relevant only if data type is string)

If type is string

value

The value for the field:


  • For boolean data types: "true" or "false"

  • For string data types: the value entered by the user after removing any leading and trailing white space (may be the empty string unless required is set to true)

Always

items

The field's possible choices

if type is choice