com.sapportals.wcm.service.pipeline.formatter

Interface Summary
Interface Description

IFormatter
The formatter generates the output format for the pipeline, e.g. the XML DOM is serialized as HTML.

Interface Summary
Interface	Description
IFormatter	The formatter generates the output format for the pipeline, e.g. the XML DOM is serialized as HTML.

Package com.sapportals.wcm.service.pipeline.formatter Description

Provides an interface for generating the output format for the publishing pipeline.

Package Specification

Purpose
Interfaces and Classes
Implementation Notes
Related Documentation

Purpose

The formatter is part of the publishing pipeline. When the publishing pipeline has finished transforming the format of a resource, the formatter is called to generate the output. The formatter processes an XML DOM or stream with a format program to produce the desired output format. Different formatter types are used, depending on whether output for an XML DOM or stream is required. The type of formatter that must be used is specified in different ways. If the IXsltPipelineService is used to process an XML, the formatter is specified as a parameter of the method that is called to execute pipeline processing. If the IPipelineService is used, the formatter is specified in the processing instructions that are generated with the help of a default processor.

Interfaces and Classes

The formatter package only provides a single IFormatter interface with a single format method. During pipeline processing, the format method is only called internally. It takes the content that has been transformed by the processor and returns it in a format that is suitable for an output device and can be displayed for an end user.

Implementation Notes

The KM platform provides different implementations of the IFormatter interface for XML and stream data. For XML data, it provides the serializer and pdf formatter. For stream data, it provides the stream formatter.

Serializer Formatter (JaxpPipelineFormatter)
This can transform an XML DOM that has been converted to a different format by the processor. It takes the XML DOM and processes it with a formatter program to create an output that is appropriate for a specific device or application. An important prerequisite is that the formatter program corresponds to the format type of the XML DOM. This means, for example, if the processor applies the stylesheet page-svg.xsl to create a vector graphic format, it must be combined with the formatter image/svg-xml to produce a legible result.

Example
The processor of the publishing pipeline applies an rss-html.xsl stylesheet to convert an XML DOM to a news format. The formatter then takes the converted DOM and transforms it with a text/html formatter to generate an HTML output.

PDF Formatter (PdfPipelineFormatter)
This receives an XML DOM that has been prepared for pdf output. It generates the pdf output by applying a application/pdf formatter program.

Stream Formatter (StreamPipelineFormatter)
A stream formatter is used whenever the pipeline processes a stream of bytes. At present, KM only supports the processing of an HTML input stream, which is handled by an HTML processor. When the HTML processor has applied a CSS stylesheet to an HTML, the stream formatter provides the HTML output by simply passing the data from the processor to an output instance. The stream formatter does not actually perform any processing steps.

The table shows the implementations of formatter programs available within the KM framework for transformations. To execute a transformation, it is necessary to provide a specially written stylesheet that generates an output that is compatible with the formatter program. All the formatter programs shown in the table are ready for use, except the PDF formatter. This works together with a public domain library that must first be downloaded.

The Identifier column of the table shows the name of the formatter that is used within the KM framework. The name must be used, for example, when specifying processing instructions for the publishing pipeline.

Implemented Class	Instances	Identifier	Output
JaxpPipelineFormatter	html	text/html	html
	plain	text/plain	text format
	svg-xml	image/svg-xml	scalable vector graphic
	vrml	model/vrml	interactive 3D mulitmedia format for the web
	wml	text/wml	wireless markup language format
	xhtml	text/xhtml	xhtml
	xml	text/xml
PdfPipelineFormatter	fop	application/pdf	pdf
StreamPipelineFormatter	stream	application/octet stream