Feed Document Generation and Delivery

By default, all feeds managed by the framework will be served as real-time feeds through Integration Broker framework by using the GetFeed service operation.

GetFeed Service Operation

A GetFeed service operation (PTFP_GETFEED) uses the runtime engine to locate the feed definition and generate feed document in Atom 1.0 format. Transformation can be done in the service operation level to get feed documents in other formats. Integration Broker manages user authentication, caching, and feed data type service operation-level security.

The primary task of the GetFeed service operation handler is to collect the request information and then forward it to the runtime engine. The handler also catches the exceptions raised by the runtime engine and reports them in the specific way applicable to Integration Broker.

By default, the GetFeed service operation only has one required parameter, the feed ID, and three optional parameters, the language code, the portal name, and the node name. The feed URL given out by the framework contains only these parameters, when applicable.

When a feed request comes in, the Integration Broker copies the values of the query parameters to the corresponding fields defined in the default feed request message definition. Then, the service operation passes this information to the runtime engine for further processing. If other query parameters exist in the request URL, then the service operation collects and passes them to the runtime engine. These additional query parameter values override the values of Data Source Parameters for which the usage types are User Specified.

Any feed data type can override this default behavior by providing its own feed request message definition extended from the default one, as well as by using a different method for generating the feed URL to include more default query parameters. Regardless, the feed ID query parameter should always be a required parameter. We do not recommend the use of query parameters for data source settings or non-user-specified data source parameters.