EXT: [drecomm] Page tree to XML¶

Table of Contents¶

EXT: [drecomm] Page tree to XML 1

Introduction 1

What does it do? 1

Screenshots 1

Configuration 2

Reference 5

Known problems 6

To-Do list 6

Changelog 6

Introduction¶

Configuration¶

It's possible to configure the plugin fully using TypoScript. Some default lines of TypoScript code will be added after very single template. These lines provide the default behaviour of the plugin, which can be modified, of course. The default behaviour is that when a page is requested with &type=555 in the querystring, a XML structure is generated based on the pages beneath. This XML structure will probably be useless for most users and is there only as example and startingpoint.

Below is a slightly modified version of these default lines of TypoScript displayed. Using this code, all different configuration options will be explained.

dre_pt2xml >

dre_pt2xml = PAGE

dre_pt2xml {

typeNum = 555

config {

disableAllHeaderCode = 1

additionalHeaders = Content-type:text/xml

admPanel = 0

}

10 = USER

10 {

includeLibs.dre_pt2xml = EXT:dre_pt2xml/pi1/class.tx_drept2xml_pi1.php

userFunc = tx_drept2xml_pi1->main

parameters {

startPID = 8

extraHeaders = <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

rootTagName = rootTag

rootTagAttributes = attribute_1="some_value" attribute_2="some_other_value"

linkPrefix = http://www.some-prefixed-url.com/

actLikeMenu = 1

10 = LEVEL

10 {

tagName = firstLevel

header = ATTRIBUTE

header {

name = header

field = title

}

}

15 = TAG

15 {

tagName = extraTag

beforeSiblings = 1

condition = title!=FirstTitle AND title!=SecondTitle

some_cdata = CDATA

some_cdata.value = some_value

some_attribute = ATTRIBUTE

some_attribute {

name = some_attribute_name

value = some_value

}

}

20 = LEVEL

20 {

tagName = secondLevel

cdata = CDATA

cdata.field = title

color = ATTRIBUTE

color {

name = color

value = 0000ff

}

link = ATTRIBUTE

link {

name = link

link = 1

typeNum = 6

ampercentNotEncoded = 0

}

}

}

}

}

The code above will be repeated and explained, step by step. The code uses almost every configuration option that's possible. Of course, the default TypoScript options like conditions and copying objects can be used as well. For example, this default object will always (!) be available and can be copied and modified easily.

First, the code creates a PAGE object with a typeNum 555. This is an arbitary typeNum, which could be every other typeNum, even zero.

dre_pt2xml >

dre_pt2xml = PAGE

dre_pt2xml {

typeNum = 555

...

In the next part a number of configuration options for the just created page will be set. First of all, all headers are removed, then the Content-type is set to text/xml and then the admin panel is disabled. This is all necessary to guarantee a clean XML structure without any HTML code in it.

...

config {

disableAllHeaderCode = 1

additionalHeaders = Content-type:text/xml

admPanel = 0

}

...

In the PAGE object, a USER object is created. Then, a library is included. This library contains the PHP class that provides the conversion to XML. Then, the main function of this class is called.

...

10 = USER

10 {

includeLibs.dre_pt2xml = EXT:dre_pt2xml/pi1/class.tx_drept2xml_pi1.php

userFunc = tx_drept2xml_pi1->main

...

The plugin is configured using a certain objects and attributes collected in the attribute parameters . The attributes for general configuration are shown below. All these attributes are optional.

startPID defines where the plugin has to start searching in the Typo3 page tree. If startPID is not set, the current page is used. extraHeaders can be used to add extra code above the genereated XML structure. This could be version or encoding information, like in the example. Furthermore, the generated XML structure is wrapped in a XML root tag, if provided. The name of the XML root tag is set with the attribute rootTagName and it's attributes are set with the attribute rootTagAttributes . Every link, generated by the plugin, will be preceded by the string defined with the attribute linkPrefix (generating links will be explained later). The last attribute is actLikeMenu . By default, this attribute is set to 1 in order to return only the pages in the page tree that are valid for menu's. In other words: if this attribute is set to one, only pages that are not 'Not in menu' and 'System' pages are returned, otherwise all pages (that are not hidden) are returned.

...

parameters {

startPID = 8

extraHeaders = <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

rootTagName = rootTag

rootTagAttributes = attribute_1="some_value" attribute_2="some_other_value"

linkPrefix = http://www.some-prefixed-url.com/

actLikeMenu = 1

...

Until now, the configuration will result in an empty XML structure, although there would be some headers and browsers would reconize the document as XML. To get a XML structure, levels has to be defined. The number of levels corresponds with the depth in which the plugin has to enter the page tree, seen from it's startingpoint. So, three levels corresponds with a maximum of three 'generations' of pages in the generated XML structure.

A level can be defined by creating a LEVEL object. A LEVEL object always needs the attribute tagName . The value of this attribute defines the name of the XML tag representing this level of pages in the generated XML structure. A LEVEL object can also contain ATTRIBUTE objects. Every ATTRIBUTE object will result in a XML attribute in the corresponding XML tag. A ATTRIBUTE object has two attributes. The attribute name contains the name of the generated XML attribute. The value of this XML attribute can be set in three different ways. When the attribute value is used, the value of this attribute is directly copied to the XML attribute. When the attribute field is used, the value of that field in the pages record of the corresponding page is copied to the XML attribute. Furthermore, there is the attribute link . When this attribute is used, a link (index.php?id= uid ) to the corresponding page is used as value for the XML attribute. All links are preceded by the string defined in the attribute linkPrefix . The link can be extended with a type variable (index.php?id= uid &type= typeNum ) by adding a attribute typeNum to the ATTRIBUTE object. Since the &-sign is encoded like '&amp;' by default, but this won't work when feeding the resulted XML to, for example, a Macromedia Flash application, it is possible to keep plain &-signs in the resulted XML by setting the attribute ampercentNotEncoded to 1. This might, however, result in an error when parsing the XML through Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or any other XML parsing application.

Next to ATTRIBUTE objects, a LEVEL object can also contain CDATA objects. A CDATA object is almost the same as an ATTRIBUTE object, except that there is no name attribute and it will not result in an other XML attribute, but the result is placed between the opening and closing XML tags.

LEVEL objects kan also contain the attribute condition . This will be explained in the next paragraph for the TAG object, but works the same way for the LEVEL object.

...

10 = LEVEL

10 {

tagName = firstLevel

header = ATTRIBUTE

header {

name = header

field = title

}

}

...

20 = LEVEL

20 {

tagName = secondLevel

cdata = CDATA

cdata.field = title

color = ATTRIBUTE

color {

name = color

value = 0000ff

}

link = ATTRIBUTE

link {

name = link

link = 1

typeNum = 6

ampercentNotEncoded = 0

}

}

...

In the previous paragraph a part form the example code was left out in comparison to the original. In this part another object is defined: the TAG object. The TAG object results at the level of the last LEVEL object in a custom XML tag with custom XML attributes. Like with LEVEL objects, a TAG object can also contain CDATA and ATTRIBUTE objects, which will work in exactly the same way.

In the example above of LEVEL objects, the condition attribute is not used like in the example below. With this attribute, next to default condition methods of TypoScript, it's possible to exclude certain pages fro the XML structure. Only the pages for which the expression in the condition attribute will result in a true value will be used. An expression contains a serie of fieldname/value pairs glued together with a ' AND ' or ' OR ' operator. The fieldnames and values itself are glued together with a '==' or '!=' operator. The fieldname is a fieldname from the pages table and the value is a static value.

The attribute beforeSiblings is only available for the TAG object and decides whether the XML tag is placed before or after it's corresponding LEVEL object in the generated XML structure.

...

15 = TAG

15 {

tagName = extraTag

beforeSiblings = 1

condition = title!=FirstTitle AND title!=SecondTitle

some_cdata = CDATA

some_cdata.value = some_value

some_attribute = ATTRIBUTE

some_attribute {

name = some_attribute_name

value = some_value

}

}

...

Depending on the exact page tree, the configuration above could result in the XML structure below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<rootTag attribute_1="some_value" attribute_2="some_other_value">
    <extraTag some_attribute_name="some_value">
        some_value
    </extraTag>
    <firstLevel header="Waves">
        <secondLevel color="0000ff" link="http://www.some-prefixed-url.com/
            index.php?id=21">Wave 1</secondLevel>
        <secondLevel color="0000ff" link="http://www.some-prefixed-url.com/
            index.php?id=20">Wave 2</secondLevel>

<secondLevel color="0000ff" link="http://www.some-prefixed-url.com/

index.php?id=19">Wave 3</secondLevel>

        <secondLevel color="0000ff" link="http://www.some-prefixed-url.com/
            index.php?id=18">Wave 4</secondLevel>
    </firstLevel>
</rootTag>

Known problems¶

No problems known yet.

To-Do list¶

Changelog¶

Documentation added.

EXT: [drecomm] Page tree to XML - 6