Orbeon Forms User Guide

Configuration Properties

1. Overview

  • Rationale ??? The Orbeon Forms properties are used by some processors to configure or customize their behavior. This section describes how the system is configured, and lists all the customizable properties.

  • Properties File Location ??? The properties sub-system is initialized after the Resource Manager (the properties being read like any other Orbeon Forms resources). By default it tries to load a file from the URLoxf:/properties.xml. This value can be overridden in the Web application descriptor web.xml with the oxf.properties initialization parameter:

    <context-param><param-name>oxf.properties</param-name><param-value>oxf:/config/properties.xml</param-value></context-param>

  • Standard Property Files ??? Even though the location of the property file can be configured in web.xml, Orbeon Forms uses the following locations:

    • oxf:/config/properties.xml: the main property file. This file is stored within orbeon-resources-public.jar. In turn, it uses XInclude to include the following files:
    • oxf:/config/properties-base.xml: base Orbeon Forms properties. This file is under WEB-INF/resources/config/.
    • oxf:/config/properties-xforms.xml: XForms engine properties. This file is under WEB-INF/resources/config/.
    • oxf:/config/properties-form-runner.xml: Orbeon Form Runner properties. This file is under WEB-INF/resources/config/.
    • oxf:/config/properties-form-builder.xml: Orbeon Form Builder properties. This file is under WEB-INF/resources/config/.
    • oxf:/config/properties-local.xml: optional file with properties local to the deployment. This file can also contain properties that override properties in the above files. This file should be placed under WEB-INF/resources/config/.
  • Automatic Reloading ??? The property file is reloaded every time it is changed (after a short delay), however some properties are taken into account only when the server is first started.

  • Property types ??? Properties have a type, which must be one of the following XML Schema simple types:xs:anyURI, xs:integer, xs:boolean, xs:QName, xs:string, xs:date, xs:dateTime.

  • Global and Processor Properties ??? There are two types of properties: global properties that apply to the system as a whole, and processor-specific properties. For instance, you set the cache size with a global property:

    <property as="xs:integer" name="oxf.cache.size" value="200"/>
    On the other hand setting the maximum amount of bytes that can be uploaded to the server is set with a processor specific property. Note the additional processor-name attribute:
    <property as="xs:integer" processor-name="oxf:request" name="max-upload-size" value="100000000"/>

  • Wildcards ??? Property names may be defined using wildcards. A property name is assumed to be built as a series of path elements separated by . characters. A path element may contain a * character instead of an actual path element value.

    <property as="xs:anyURI" name="oxf.fr.persistence.app.uri.*.*.*" value="/fr/service/exist"/><property as="xs:anyURI" name="oxf.fr.persistence.app.uri.*.*.data" value="/fr/service/oracle"/><property as="xs:anyURI" name="oxf.fr.persistence.app.uri.orbeon.builder.form" value="/fr/service/resource"/>

    In this example:

    • If the property name oxf.fr.persistence.app.uri.orbeon.builder.form is requested, the value /fr/service/resource is returned (exact match).

    • If the property name oxf.fr.persistence.app.uri.orbeon.foobar.data is requested, the value /fr/service/oracle is returned, because the path elements orbeon, foobar match wildcards, and data matches the last path element.

    • If the property name oxf.fr.persistence.app.uri.orbeon.foobar.form is requested, the value /fr/service/exist is returned, because the path elements orbeon, foobar and form all match wildcards.

    This allows creating hierarchical properties with generic defaults and more specific values.

2. Global Properties

This section has migrated to the wiki.

3. Epilogue Properties

This section has migrated to the wiki.

4. Java Processor Properties

4.1. Class Path

Name classpath
Purpose Defines a directory where Java class files are located. The Java processor dynamically compiles Java code, and may need some libraries. This property defines the classpath used by the compiler.
Processor name oxf:java
Type xs:string
Default Value None

4.2. JAR Path

Name jarpath
Purpose Defines a list of directories where JAR files are located. The Java processor dynamically compiles Java code, and may need some libraries. This property defines a "JAR path", a list of directories containing JAR files that will be added to the classpath when compiling and running the processor executed by the Java processor.
Processor name oxf:java
Type xs:string
Default Value None

4.3. Compiler JAR

Name compiler-jar
Purpose Define a URL pointing to a JAR file containing the Java compiler to use. If this property is set, the Java processor adds the specified JAR file to the class path used to search for the main compiler class.
Processor name oxf:java
Type xs:anyURI
Default Value If the property is not specified, the Java processor tries to load the main compiler class first using the current class loader. If this fails, it retrieves the java.home system property which specifies a directory on disk. If that directory is called jre, and there exists a JAR file relative to that directory under ../lib/tools.jar, that JAR file is added to the class path used to search for the main compiler class. This covers most cases where the standard Sun JDK is used, so that the compiler-jar property does not have to be specified.

4.4. Compiler Main Class

Name compiler-class
Purpose Define a class name containing the Java compiler to use. The Java processor loads the corresponding class and calls a static method on this class with the following signature: public static int compile(String[] commandLine, PrintWriter printWriter).
Processor name oxf:java
Type xs:string
Default Value com.sun.tools.javac.Main

5. Email Processor Properties

5.1. Global SMTP Host

The following property can be specified globally as a property instead of being part of the processor configuration:

Name smtp-host
Purpose Configure the SMTP host for all email processors. This global property can be overridden by local processor configurations.
Processor name oxf:email
Type xs:string
Default Value None

The following properties can be used for testing purposes:

5.2. Test SMTP host

Name test-smtp-host
Purpose Configure a test SMTP host for all email processors. This global property when specified overrides all the other SMTP host configurations for all Email processors, whether in the processor configuration or using the smtp-host property.
Processor name oxf:email
Type xs:string
Default Value None

Note

This property replaces the deprecated smtp property.

5.3. Test Recipient

Name test-to
Purpose Configure a test recipient email address for all email processors. This global property when specified overrides all the other SMTP recipient configurations for all Email processors.
Processor name oxf:email
Type xs:string
Default Value None

Note

This property replaces the deprecated forceto property.

For example, those properties can be used as follows:

<property as="xs:string" processor-name="oxf:email" name="smtp-host" value="mail.example.org"/><property as="xs:string" processor-name="oxf:email" name="test-smtp-host" value="test.example.org"/><property as="xs:string" processor-name="oxf:email" name="test-to" value="joe@example.org"/>

The test properties can easily be commented out for deployment.