Oracle Internet File System Developer's Guide Release 1.1 A75172-04 |
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This chapter covers the following topics:
The Oracle Internet File System (Oracle iFS) is a file system in a database. From the user perspective, Oracle iFS looks exactly like any other networked drive on your file system. However, because Oracle iFS actually stores documents in a relational database, rather than on a local hard drive, users can perform many tasks using Oracle iFS that are not possible using standard file systems.
For example:
For developers, using Oracle iFS offers several specific advantages:
As a developer of Oracle iFS applications, you have access to all the components of Oracle iFS:
The Oracle iFS repository provides a single storage facility for all of your files, whether they are a standard type, such as XML, or a custom type that you define. This single storage facility means that files are managed consistently, regardless of the protocol used to manipulate them.
You can use standard clients, such as Windows Explorer; out-of-the-box Oracle iFS clients, such as the Web interface: You can also create a custom client to access Oracle iFS data. TCP/IP is used for communication between clients and the Oracle iFS server.
Out-of-the-box, Oracle iFS ships with a set of standard protocol servers: SMB, HTTP, FTP, SMTP, and IMAP4. Each Oracle iFS protocol server accepts commands from a standard client and maps those commands to repository operations.
The Oracle iFS document hierarchy may fit your application needs as is. If the out-of-the-box hierarchy fits your application needs only in part, you can easily create custom document classes using XML to define custom attributes and Java to implement custom processing.
The Oracle iFS Java API consists of a set of classes and methods that custom applications can use to access the repository and perform file management operations.
To use Oracle iFS in custom application development, you need a few readily available tools:
The following table lists common customization tasks and the corresponding tool to use.
The Oracle Internet File System was built with ease of customization in mind. Depending on the requirements of your application, you can choose from three levels of customization:
For many applications, the file system management and content management features of Oracle iFS mean that no customization is required. Oracle iFS provides many out-of-the-box capabilities that you might expect to add with customization to a standard document-centered application, such as:
For applications that require only adding custom attributes to the existing Document class, basic customization can be done using XML, with no Java programming required.
When you use XML to define custom document attributes, you have access to parsing and rendering facilities provided by the SimpleXmlParser and SimpleXmlRenderer included with Oracle iFS.
For applications with complex requirements, customization can be carried out in Java, starting with the classes provided in the Oracle iFS Java API.
With Java programming, you can add the following types of customization:
The following table lists common application tasks and the Oracle iFS functionality you might use to accomplish the task.
The Oracle iFS Java API is a set of classes that allow an application developer to create, update, and delete repository objects. The API classes allow you to perform in a custom manner the same functions provided through the Oracle iFS protocols and interfaces. The following table lists these functions and their corresponding reference in this document.
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