Document Data

Libraries can store custom user-defined fields called docdata values.  These are named items stored with a document, identified by the document type, document id, and a name.  Names can be up to 20 characters, and values can be any length.  Names and values are both indexed (value indexes are only unique up to 40 characters), enabling the library object to provide indexed searches for name-value pairs.

The values are stored as url-encoded values to prevent delimiter issues.  Note that this affects sorting of docdata lists returned by the library object, as some non-alpha-numeric data is converted to encoded hexadecimal and will sort out of sequence when compared with other non-alpha-numeric data.

Some document data is editable in the archive browser interface, as described below.

There are three types of docdata elements, standard elements, entry descriptors, and metadata elements.

Standard elements have alpha-numeric names and store any value.

Entry descriptors have names beginning with an asterisk (*), with the balance of the name used as a entry category, and the value storing a tab-separated values list composed of standard element names, an input type, and a validation name.  The input type is one of: text, longtext, note, number, date, checkbox, radio=item1;item2..., list=item1;item2..., lookup=lookupname, grid, or label=label text.  Lookups and validations are defined in the Image Manager's Custom Code tool.  This descriptor definition provides the browser interface with the data needed to present an input form for the associated docdata elements.

Metadata elements have names prefixed with @, and are read-only in the browser interface.  Note also that any docdata field that is not defined in an entry descriptor definition is also read-only.