Portal Object Model (POM)

In order to generate the HTML content for a specific HTTP request, the portal creates a POM (Portal Object Model) tree of all components that will be involved in generating HTML for the request.

Often, there is only a single component for generating the content. But a component can delegate to another component the task of generating the HTML for the request, or can include the HTML from another component in its response. These are done during POM creation.

During the creation of the POM, the Portal Runtime calls methods of the components involved in the request. Afterward, during content creation, the Portal Runtime calls other methods of the components. These methods are described in Event Cycle.

POM Structure

A node called the Portal Node is always the root of the POM, and is created automatically. The first child of this node is a node that represents the component specified in the request URL. This component can then include other components in the request by creating other nodes within the POM.

The following is a simple POM with one component, which could represent a request for a single iView that is rendered using the component com.sap.portal.myComponent :

The following is a more complex POM with several components involved in the request:

The above tree represents a page that includes an iView (component) and another page, which includes two iViews (components). The Page Builder component is a major user of the POM mechanism.

• Request Flow illustrates the POM process flow for handling a request.

• Request URL describes how the request URL is constructed.