• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 20
• Relevant for Installation Type: Dedicated-Direct; Direct; Local;

When making a custom service how can the xml (or other) file be designed to
A. check for the existence of a file before allowing user to submit
B. Check if specific characters do or do not exist before allowing user to submit

For example, in the case below the first field called “first name”
A. can be empty and the job can still be submitted. How can this be prevented?
B. can have characters such as [ and { and the job can still be submitted. How can this be prevented?

Resolution:
When making a custom service how can the xml (or other) file be designed to
A. check for the existence of a file before allowing user to submit
B. Check if specific characters do or do not exist before allowing user to submit

Neither option is currently available.

About A, nothing can be done. All the files existence checks in Aleph services are done by COBOL programs (named b_[service_name]_check_param.cbl), we do not have a script for this.

About B, same thing. The only characters that are always forbidden are the following ones, hard-codingly checked at submitting time: ? { ' ` ^ > ,

But, thoiugh it is not possible to confirm the existence of a specified input file prior to submission, it *is* possible to produce an error message in the job log file if the input file parameter is blank. Lines such as the following would be added to the $aleph_proc procedure:

if ($p_input_file == "") then
echo " *******************Error: Input file cannot be blank************************* "
endif

[Note: in some procs the input file parameter may be "p_input_file_name" rather than "p_input_file".]