session.evaluate and notesxspdocument - xpages

I have question regarding session.evaluate in SSJS. In a keyword document I have some #formula stored which does some conversion of data. Lets say this is would be:
#left(fieldname;2)
If the fieldname contained 'hello' this would result in 'he'. Nothing to fancy here. Now I would like to use this in an xpage.
I wrote a function called executeFormula(doc). I call this function from an action on a xpage. This xpage contains 1 notes document datasource. The function call is
executeFormula(datasource.getDocument(true))
Now for some reason the #formula is never calculated correctly. Do I need to save the document first before I can use session.evaluate(kwFormula,doc) or is the #formula wrong in some way?
p.s. I forgot to mention that this code is working inside a customvalidator

Without seeing the code for the executeFormula(doc) function it is very difficult to know exactly how session.evaluate is being called.
I would suggest taking the function out of the equasion for the moment and create a simple test page with the document source and a simple computed field with the session.evaluate in it so that you can see the result. Given your examples above the computed field would be something along the lines of
session.evaluate("#Left(fieldname;2)",xspDoc.getDocument(true));
Once you get acceptable results back then you can move it into your function and verify that it is working there also.
Don't forget that session.evaluate returns a vector so you may beed to do a .getFirstElement() on the returned value if it is not null.

If you're using it in a custom validator, the values posted from the browser/client haven't updated the data model (in your case, the document) yet. This happens after validation is successful.
I imagine it might work for some fields (e.g. fields that are updated after a successful refresh, or stored fields in an existing document).

Actually no need of mentioning the document, eg:- session.evaluate("#username") is enough.
For yours session.evaluate("#left('hello';2)") will work.,

Related

Xpages: how to have a custom function return type ahead values

I have a SSJS object/function that does a custom full text search, as the results need to be in a specific order defined by my client. This function works fine in the search results view. It has a method to build the search query (add the * and the AND and all that), a property that returns the sorted results and I just added a method that returns the HTML needed for the type ahead.
My object is called SortedSearchResults. It needs to be instantiated with the search query in order to get the results and the type ahead HTML. How would I code that in the the type ahead values, so I don'T end up creating one SortedSearchResults object each time a letter is added to the type ahead field?
Would I be better off with a session managed bean? Would that make it easier? Would it make it faster? The search is limited to a maxiumum of 15 results.
Sor far, I only used SSJS code, but I am not sure how what I should do to avoid a memory hole. Here is the current code:
//TODO Memory management???
var results = new SortedSearchResults( getComponent("inputSearch").getValue());
return results.typeAheadValues;
How can I optimize this code so I don'T create unecessary "var results"? Or is it OK that way???
Thanks :)

Update XPages text value from within a repeat?

I feel like I'm just not understanding something about the XPages lifecycle here. I have an xp:text control, with a value of viewScope.count. Initially, that's null. After the xp:text, I have a repeat that's performing a calculation and returning an array of objects for its value. At the end of the repeat's value section, I'm trying to update the xp:text with a count of the things in the array:
viewScope.count = myArray.length;
The xp:text isn't being updated with that value, though. Should this work? Do I need to do a manual refresh of the xp:text when I modify viewScope.count? TIA!
You should be able to use the index of the repeat to give you a count.
Take a step back and rethink the approach. Inside the code you use for your repeat you update something outside.
Not looking at 'does it work' I would claim 'bad idea'. Such side effects make maintenance a nightmare (and are not very MVC).
The better approach (IMHO):
Create an object data source. AFAIK that can be a JSON object if you are not comfortable with Java. That object would have all the needed properties for your repeat and your counter display. It serves as your model.
Then bind the repeat and the text field to the model and you are good.
Makes sense?

SPServices GetListItems returning field values as "undefined"

I ran across a problem for which I found no documented solution, but inadvertently found the solution myself. So I wanted to document this here for others who may encounter the same problem.
I was using a CAML query within SPServices to retrieve list items, then referencing "ows_{fieldname}" as usual to retrieve the field value for each list item. The field value was reported as "undefined" for all items. I quintuple-checked that I was specifying the proper name of the field and that my query was properly constructed.
I eventually discovered that the fields I was trying to reference were not displayed in the default view of the list. As soon as I changed the list properties to include the fields in the default view, the proper field values were returned within my javascript.
I don't know how much of Sharepoint's underpinnings work, but I was very surprised at my finding because it implies that the SPServices GetListItems method gets its data from the list's default view, not the actual underlying list. I realize I could be wrong in this interpretation, but I imagine others could run into this same problem.
The default, although unreliable, way GetListItems works is that it's suppose to returns all fields displayed on the default list view if you don't specify ViewFields on input. This is unreliable. Although you got it working - now - someone could come along later and change the default view thus breaking your sweet customization. Bummer. :)
I suggest always listing the ViewFields you are interested in on the GetListItems method. This ensures that your will get them if they are set. That's right. You could still get rows with an undefined field. This happens mostly on fields of type Lookup that are not set on a row.
Hope this helps you understand what is going on. Over the years I have created my own wrappers around SPServices to ensure I get back a reference to all fields requested, even if they are not in the response by Sharepoint.
When using SPServices' GetListItems method, be sure that any fields that you reference from the list are included in the list's default view, otherwise an undefined value will be returned.

Retrieving column values in filtered xpages view

I have a view defined on an xpage. I also have several filters (based on the columns) that the user can select and combine to filter the results in the view. I generate a query string based on this that I construct in dominoView.search (doing a complete refresh). What I would like to do is get the results of the search so that I can then update some counts displayed elsewhere on the page. I'm having a hard time figuring out where I can perform this logic, though. I'm trying to use view.getAllEntries() and then iterating over the collection. Sometimes it seems like it works, but other times I seem to be getting the unfiltered view. Someone suggested I explicitly call view.FTSearch inside one of the events (beforePageLoad?) and immediately after do my getAllEntries call, saving the results in viewScope, but I get an "Error while browses Notes view" runtime error when I try to do that. Any pointers? TIA!
EDIT: After studying the xpages lifecycle a bit (which is still a little confusing), I think I can fine-tune my question. This is my first stackoverflow question, so I hope this is okay to do and productive....
As I described, I have a dominoView defined on my xpage. A repeat iterates over the rows of the view, displaying certain fields from the documents. If I define a query in the search property, then the repeat correctly displays the reduced set of documents rather than the complete set. (The query is computed in the search property via SSJS from some variables defined in the viewScope in a combobox's eventHandler.) However, if I try to access the current entries in the view inside of the repeat's rendered section (with SSJS) using myView.getAllEntries (where myView is what's defined as the "value" of the repeat), I am still getting all of the documents, even if a query has been done. It seems like at that point, the view variable has already had its search applied (since the repeat works), so why the differing results? Is there another way to access the view's rows? To complicate this further, this is just a simple experiment that might clarify the problem; as I indicated earlier, I don't actually want to access the view data within the repeat, I want to access it in the rendered or value sections of some comboboxes defined before the repeat in the xpage file.
I hope that makes more sense now....
EDIT #2: I forgot to add that if I manually call FTSearch (or FTSearchSorted) before calling myView.getAllEntries, then I think I can make this work. It just seems unnecessary to have to do that in addition to the view's built-in search.
From what I get you want to iterate over the entries in a view that before has been filtered, i.e. whose resulting entry collection is smaller than the the view itself.
What I don't get (yet) is what you want to do with the result, or what you're axpecting to get from the iteration over your filtered view (you're mentioning some counts to be displayed somewhere else).
Probably a good way is to use the view's .getAllEntriesByKey method which returns a NotesViewEntryCollection object which then can be used for your iteration.
Don't forget to recycle the resulting NotesViewEntry objects; reason for this has been explained several times here at stackoverflow.

Dynamic field binding inside a repeat control

I have a strange thing, I'm using dynamic field binding in a custom control.
The field binding is created like this.
XPage (Datasource "document" is placed here)
Custom Control (String passed in)
(to get errors if there are any)
Repeat (CompositeData is passed to a bean that returns the strings for Rows,columns)
Repeat (repeat 1 variable used for Columns)
Custom Control (fieldname is passed in)
field binding is done like this
#{document[compositeData.fieldName]}
The problem is that when I save the XPage I get an error in the messages control
Document has been saved by another user - Save created a new document as a response to that modified document.
And all fields are cleared.
Any ideas how to debug this or is there something I'm missing?
The "Document has been saved by another user" error is only tip of the iceberg - there are some really strange problems with reapeats that repeats fields that are bound and repeatControls property is set to false. The decoding part of xpages lifecycle cannot handle it properly - the controls will be losing data. You should use repeatControls set to true as Martin suggests.
"Repeat control variable doesn't exists" is probably caused by the property that removes repeats set to true. You can solve this by either changing it to false or by adding additional data context that will keep repeated value.
And finally for this to have add/remove functionality You can use Dynamic Content Control and show(null) hack to rebuild the repeat content.
To manage this complexity better I would advise You to stop using document data source and start creating some managed beans.
If You will follow my suggestions I guarantee that You will get the functionality You are looking for as I have few apps that works great and have this kind of complex data editors in them.
I don't know if it'll help you, but I pass both the document datasource and the field name as parameters to a DynamicField control, and use it like this:
compositeData.dataSource[compositeData.fieldName]
The type of the datasource is com.ibm.xsp.model.DataSource, it's listed as dataInterface under Data Sources.
Do you have repeatControls="true" set for the repeat control?
It sounds like you've got the datasource defined multiple times on the XPage (plus custom controls). Either that or the save button has save="true" but the code saves the document back-end, or code in multiple places saves the same document. I've used the same method of passing the datasource down to the custom control, but that may just be because that was what I saw on a blog.

Resources