Built in Action Methods

March 10, 2026 02:49 AM

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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
add	Adds the Item as an instance of an ItemType.
update	Updates 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.
purge	Deletes the version of the Item.
delete	Deletes all versions of the Item. The purge and delete are the same for non-versionable Items.
get	Gets the Item(s) and its configuration based on the AML Item configuration used to query the database.
getItemConfig	Returns 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).
GetItemRepeatConfig	Performs 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.
edit	Locks, updates, and unlocks the Item.
create	Acts as a ‘get’ if the Item exists, otherwise acts as an ‘add’.
merge	Acts as an ‘edit’ if the Item exists, otherwise acts as an ‘add’.
lock	Locks the Item and is the same as the `Item.lockItem()` method.
unlock	Locks the Item and is the same as the `Item.unlockItem()` method.
version	Creates 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.