The invokeDDX operation of the Assembler service requires
the following data items as input:
A document value that represents the
DDX document, provided as the value of the DDX property of the operation.
A map value that holds the documents to
be assembled, provided as the Input Document Map property of the
operation. The keys for the map value are the key
words that the DDX document defines. Each value in the map are
either a document value that represents a single
PDF document or a list of document values
for representing multiple PDF documents.
Typically, the PDF documents to assemble are available at run
time as document values. In this case, a map value
needs to be created and populated with the document values so that
it can be used as the value of the Input Document Map property of
the invokeDDX operation.
The DDX document and the number of PDF documents to assemble
determine whether the map value should contain document values
or list values that hold document data
items. For example, the following DDX document is used for the example
process described above.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<DDX xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/DDX/1.0/">
<PDF result="GeneratedDocument.pdf">
<PDF source="cover"/>
<PackageFiles>
<PDF source="attachments"/>
</PackageFiles>
</PDF>
</DDX>
The DDX document provides the following information about the
documents to assemble:
The <PDF source="cover"/> element
defines the cover key word, which is associated
with the PDF document to use as the cover page.
The <PDF source="attachments"/> element
defines the attachments key word, which is associated
with several PDF documents to assemble.
The map value must use cover and attachments as
keys. The values for the keys must be list data
items that hold document values:
Multiple PDF documents are associated with the attachments key
word; therefore, the value for the attachments key
needs to be a listdata item that holds the document
values.
Data items in a map must be of the same
type; therefore, although only one document is used as a cover page,
the value for the cover key needs to be a list data
item.
Retrieving the DDX File
In the example process diagram illustrated
previously, the Read DDX File From Repository operation is a Read
Resource Content operation that the Repository service provides:
The Resource URI property of the Input property group is
used to specify the location of the DDX document in the repository.
The Result property is used to save the retrieved DDX document
in a document variable.
Assembling the document
In the example process diagram illustrated
previously, the invokeDDX operation needs to be configured so that
it uses the DDX document that was retrieved from the repository
and the PDF documents that are provided to the process as input data.
The value of the DDX property is specified as the value of
the document variable that holds the DDX document.
The inputs property of the Input property
group is used to identify the map variable that
stores the documents to assemble:
The cover key is
associated with a list variable that contains one document to use
as the cover page of the assembled document.
The attachments key is associated with a list variable that
contains all of the other documents that are to be assembled.
The value of the Result property of the Output property group
is used to identify the map variable that stores
the results of the invokeDDX operation. In this case, because only
one document is assembled, the map includes one key/value pair.
The key is result, as it was defined by the <PDF result="GeneratedDocument.pdf"> element
in the DDX document. The value is a document value
that represents the assembled PDF document.
