Adding a data source configuration element

You can include dynamic data source elements to be defined at run time. The Data Source Configuration element allows you to reconfigure a data source.

Rational® Publishing Engine calculates the URLs of static data sources when the document generation begins and not at the time when the first query from the data source is accessed. With data source configuration elements, you can control the evaluation time of elements during document generation.

Data source configuration elements are useful when you do not know the connection information while starting to design your document. For example, if you linked artifacts from two products, A and B, the data source information can be picked up from the B at run time. By reconfiguring a data source, you change the properties such as URI, user name, password, and any other data source-specific properties used by Rational Publishing Engine when extracting data.

Before you begin

The Data Source Configuration element must be placed in the document template before the element that contains the queries for the configured data source.

About this task

Use the Data Source Configuration element to reconfigure the data source. A data source configuration element must be connected to a data source schema that is used in the template. Depending on the data source configuration, the dynamic data source element includes properties similar to the properties in document specification. At the time of document generation, this element initializes or reinitialize the data source. Use the Data Source Configuration element to define only the properties that are not known at run time. Using this element for all properties such as the user name, password, location of exe files make the templates less portable.

Although the Data Source Configuration element properties are similar to the ones defined for data source element in document specification, the properties from the document specification have static values while the properties from the Data Source Configuration element use values from another data source available in their context.

Procedure

To reconfigure the data source:

  1. In the Palette view, select the Data Source Configuration icon Data Source Configuration element and drag it into the template.
  2. Select the data source configuration element.
  3. In the Properties view, select the Data tab.
  4. In the Target data source property, enter the name of the data source schema. After a data source configuration is connected to a data source schema, its formatting properties are updated to reflect the run time properties of the data source schema type.
  5. In the Inherited data configuration property, enter the name of a data source schema used in the template. By default this property does not contain a value. You can change this value with the data source schema name that is used in the template. If this property is used, the target data source is configured using the settings taken from the inherited data source, along with the properties defined in the data source configuration.

    The properties from the inherited data source are used when a value is not specified for the target data source. For example, the URL of the inherited data source is used for the target data source as long as the URL property is not filled for the target data source. A common use for the inherited data source property is to provide credentials only once for data sources.

    Other properties can also be specified or they are taken from either the values provided in the Document Specification or the data source defined under the inherited data source property.
    Note: The target data source and inherited data source can be the same data source. If inherited data source is left empty, the target data source is used.

    Unless the data source configuration property is empty, it takes precedence over the document specification property. Rational Publishing Engine combines the properties defined in the Data Source Configuration element with those defined in the Document Specification.


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