Details of the output generation process sequence

The following diagram shows how IXIA CCMS Output Generator interacts with other components, and how it uses the different configuration files to determine the transformation scenario and run it.

Note: In a dedicated SaaS deployment, your access to the Output Generator is limited. Some tasks require the use of the Output Generator Access Tool (OGAT).
Note: You do not need to know these details to create transformation scenarios.
Figure: Output generation process
Output Generator detailed process

Item

Action or response

1

User selects Generate Output for an object

2

CCMS retrieves output types and user parameters from CCMS Output Generator over network and provides to user in dialog

3

CCMS Output Generator looks up any output types in the conf/outputtypes.xml file to get the list of defined output types and combines them with the client-defined output types in conf/client/outputtypes.xml file

4

CCMS Output Generator looks up any preprocessors in the conf/preprocessors.xml file and combines them with the client-defined preprocessors in the conf/preprocessors.xml to create the list of user parameters to display to the user

5

CCMS Output Generator returns all the available output types and the user parameters for each output type to CCMS, which only provides the output types the user has permission to view, based on the user's roles and groups in accessrights.xml for each output type, as specified

6

CCMS retrieves the list of ditaval files available from IXIA TEXTML Server

7

IXIA TEXTML Server returns the list of the available ditaval files to CCMS

8

CCMS provides options to user inGenerate Output dialog

9

CCMS retrieves the content of the selected ditaval files available from IXIA TEXTML Server

10

IXIA TEXTML Server returns the content of the selected ditaval files to CCMS

11

The user selects the user parameters or ditaval file, if any, and clicks Generate

12

(For deprecated Conditions preprocessor) Based on the output type, either as entered by the user or from the previous Generate Output request, CCMS searches the TEXTML Server to retrieve the condition values for this output type and index values of any user parameters of type

Note: If there are many topics to transform, such as a map with a thousand topics, this step can take a few seconds, since TEXTML Server must scan each topic to get the list of conditions, parameters, and the list of the object's children.

13

If the user entered a ditaval file, CCMS returns the content of the ditaval file from TEXTML Server

Note: All filtering takes place during the output process based on the selected ditaval.

14
CCMS sends the following information to CCMS Output Generator:
  • Output type selected
  • Object ID
  • Object type
  • TEXTML Server, Content Store, and collection that contains the files to transform
  • Monitoring port where the dialog listens for updates from CCMS Output Generator
  • Content of the ditaval file
  • User parameter values sent in the buildproperties file

15

Based on the user-specified output type, CCMS Output Generator looks at the conf/outputtypes.xml and client/outputtypes.xml files to determine the preprocessors to run for this output type

16

CCMS Output Generator looks at file inputtypes.xml to determine how to retrieve the object to process from TEXTML Server

Note: This file specifies the method to run to retrieve the object from the Content Store, since each object type has its own handling method. For example, if the Generate Output command is specified on a map, then the map and all its containing objects must be retrieved from TEXTML Server. However, if the Generate Output command is specified on a resource, then only that resource is retrieved.

17

CCMS Output Generator retrieves from the TEXTML Server files to transform and stores them in memory

18

TEXTML Server sends the retrieved files in CCMS Output Generator memory

19

(For deprecated Conditions preprocessor) If the user specified conditions in the Output Generator dialog, the CCMS Output Generator applies these conditions and removes from memory the content that does not meet these conditions

20

CCMS Output Generator saves the files to the job directory

21

CCMS Output Generator looks up the conf/preprocessors.xml and client/preprocessors.xml files to retrieve the conductor file and target to run for each preprocessor

22

The conductor file loads and runs the target

23

During the initiation of the target, the target forks a JVM to run the DITA-OT transformation in it and when the DITA-OT transformation completes, the JVM closes and it returns control to the target

24

The target runs any post-processing instructions and returns the control to CCMS Output Generator

25

If the keep.log.files parameter is set to true in the preprocessors.xml file, CCMS Output Generator copies log files from the job directory to the output directory

26
  • (CCMS Desktop)CCMS Output Generator zips the contents of the output directory
  • (CCMS Web) CCMS Output Generator saves the output to the app server

27

(CCMS Desktop) CCMS Output Generator returns the zip file to the dialog

28

CCMS Output Generator runs the target defined in the <clean> element in the preprocessors.xml file. By default, this is the job_postprocess target

29

(CCMS Web) The user downloads the output from the My Outputs page