This interface describes a parameter transmitted to the Arbortext PE server as part of a publishing request. Parameters are logically contained in an object that implements the interface com.arbortext.E3ServerCompositionRequest, which is written to a file named index.xml in the input directory that is transmitted to the Arbortext PE server as part of the JAR file. A parameter consists of three strings specifying the parameter name, value, and type. Parameter names must be unique. Valid types are string, file, and entry.

A string parameter has a simple string value, and Arbortext PE server does not perform any special processing. A file parameter represents a file on the Arbortext PE server, and its value must be an absolute path. The Arbortext PE server will check that the file exists as part of setup before running the publishing request. An entry parameter represents a file being transmitted to the Arbortext PE server, and its value must be the name of a file in the input directory, which becomes an entry in the JAR archive transmitted to the server.

These parameter types are a subset of the parameter types that may be passed to the Client Composer. As part of processing the parameters it receives, the Client Composer processes local parameters by not encoding them for transmission to the Arbortext PE server. The Client Composer processes the document and opendoc parameters by converting them to entry parameters and copying the underlying documents into the input directory.

You can create parameters of your own by creating objects that implement the E3ServerCompositionParameter interface and adding them to the server request by calling the E3ServerCompositionRequest.addParameter method. You can use the class com.arbortext.e3.ServerCompositionParameter (though intended for internal use, custom code can use it).

Simply creating a parameter and adding it to a request does not perform the processing. You must place a file in the input directory before creating an entry parameter, and verify that a file really does exist on the Arbortext PE server before creating a file parameter.