Page History

...

When a source or target is specified for a file transfer operation a reference is made to a protocol fragment element. These elements can be thought of as a series of predefined part configurations that can be called up as required for specific file transfer operations. Protocol fragments are elements the configuration Fragments branch in the XSD Schema, which can be thought of as a library of preconfiguredpre-configured connections.

ProtocolFragments are children of the Fragments element and in turn can have any number of child elements. Example protocol fragment elements would be the FTPFragment and the SFTPFragment.

Protocol fragment elements have descendants that specify parameters such as the authentication method, the connection type and proxy.

The first diagram shows the structure of the upper levels of the Fragments branch as represented in the  XSD Schema.of the XML hierarchy are

• Fragments
  • ProtocolFragments
    • FTPFragment
    • SFTPFRagment
    • etc.
  • AlternativeFragments (optional)
  • NotificationFragments (optional)

  StatuscolourGreentitle3-level from fragments

Protocol fragment elements are parameterprotocol-specific - that is, there is a ProtocolFragments element defined in the XSD schema for each file transfer protocol. This approach enables the properties of each protocol to be reflected in the schema and allows dependencies and incompatibilities to be defined. A trivial example here would be that a PassiveMode element can be specified for an FTPFragment but not for an SFTPFragment.

The next diagram shows the structure of an example protocol fragment element - the FTPFragment. StatuscolourGreentitle3-level from fragments:

• FTPFragment
  • BasicAuthentication
    • Account
    • Password (optional)
  • BasicConnection
    • Hostname
    • Port (optional)

Note that protocol fragments can be used for either a transfer source or target as required. This is described in more detail in the next sectionNote that there is, for example, a protocol fragment defined for each FTP host that can be addressed as either a source or target. Protocol fragment elements are not target or source specific.

Calling Protocol Fragments

Any number of ProtocolFragments can be specified within a file transfer configuration and any number of fragments can be defined for a particular protocol. A particular fragment is identified referenced by a name attribute and this attribute is referenced by a corresponding fragment reference element in the configuration Profiles branch.

Operation-dependent source and target elements specify the ProtocolFragments element that is to be used. For example:

• A Copy operation requires that CopySource and CopyTarget elements are specified.
• The CopySource and CopyTarget elements in turn are used to specify CopySourceFragmentRef and CopytargetFragmentRef elements, that respectively define the Fragments to be used for each of the two parts of the operation.

...

The XML hierarchy used to define the fragments required for a copy operation from a remote source to a target on the local file system is as follows:

• Operation
  • Copy
    
    • CopySource
      
      • CopySourceFragmentRef
        
        • FTPFragmentRef (Has the ref Attribute specifying the source ProtocolFragment)
      • SourceFileOptions
        • Selection
    • CopyTarget
      
      • CopyTargetFragmentRef
        • LocalTarget (A ProtocolFragment does not need to be defined here as the target is the local file system )
      • Directory

The use of protocol fragments is described in more detail in the Configuring Protocol Fragments article.

...

• AlternativeFragments elements, which can specify a number of Fragmentsfragments. These fragments will be applied in order, should, for example a server not be available. For example, it is conceivable that in some situations a less secure protocol would be tried if a the original (more secure) one is not available.