Aras Innovator Platform

Built in Action Methods

The Method name is passed as the action attribute for the <Item> tag in AML.

<Item type="My ItemType” action="My Method” id="…"/>

In addition to Method names as the action attribute value there is also a set of ‘Built in Action Methods’. These are basically the same as Methods, but you cannot find them in the database when searching the Method Items. Nevertheless, they are called the same way as ordinary Methods via the action attribute.

The following table is a reference for Built in Action Methods.

Built in Action Method Comments
addAdds the Item as an instance of an ItemType.
updateUpdates the Item.
  • The Item must be locked.
  • If the Item is versionable and is being updated for the first time since being locked, the update versions the Item applying the update to the new version, unless the version=‘0’ attribute is specified, which disables the versioning.
purgeDeletes the version of the Item.
deleteDeletes all versions of the Item. The purge and delete are the same for non-versionable Items.
getGets the Item(s) and its configuration based on the AML Item configuration used to query the database.
getItemConfigReturns the Item configuration as described by the standard AML query. The AML in and out are no different from the standard action=‘get’. The GetItemConfig is optimized by limiting the logic done between the SQL call and the AML result. Performance improvement is gained by limiting the features typically available in Innovator GetItem (no server events or access checking on the sub level Items).
GetItemRepeatConfigPerforms a recursive query on a related item. It will continue getting all the related IDs of the parent item recursively. The number of recursive calls is dependent on the value of the repeatTimes variable.
editLocks, updates, and unlocks the Item.
createActs as a ‘get’ if the Item exists, otherwise acts as an ‘add’.
mergeActs as an ‘edit’ if the Item exists, otherwise acts as an ‘add’.
lockLocks the Item and is the same as the Item.lockItem()
method.
unlockLocks the Item and is the same as the Item.unlockItem()
method.
versionCreates a new generation of an Item, clearing the locked_by_id of the originating Item and setting the locked_by_id in the new generation. It then applies an update to the newly created generation. The server events triggered in the following sequence: onBeforeVersion, onAfterVersion, onBeforeUpdate, onAfterUpdate. If the item is not versionable, an exception is thrown.