Weird CDATA issue

[Darren]

Hi guys - am having a weird issue with CDATA in XML and cant work out
if it is a bug (sorry - Feature) of Workbench or if it is expected
behavior. It easier to demonstrate in a simple LCA:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7636567/CDATABug_1-0_2011-12-01-1346.lca (just
import and run CDATABug process)

But basically if I try to extract an XML Node value from some XML that
contains a CDATA tag using XPath, then the variable assignment returns
the XML header and the whole Node XML I was querying. If the exact
same query is done without the CDATA tags in the Node, the Node's
value is returned only.

e.g.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Locales>
<Locale lang="cdata" default="true">
<PDFEmail>
<EmailBody><![CDATA[This is some text]]></EmailBody>
</PDFEmail>
</Locale>
<Locale lang="nocdata">
<PDFEmail>
<EmailBody>This is some text</EmailBody>
</PDFEmail>
</Locale>
</Locales>

/process_data/xmlData/Locales/Locale[@lang='cdata']/PDFEmail/
EmailBody

Returns: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><EmailBody><!
[CDATA[This is some text]]></EmailBody>

/process_data/xmlData/Locales/Locale[@lang='nocdata']/PDFEmail/
EmailBody

Returns: This is some text

[Duane Nickull]

What version of LC are you using before I take a look at the *.lca? Can
you just send the form?

Duane
Überity.com ­ Principle Data Architect
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant
http://technoracle.blogspot.com
@duanechaos

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[Darren]

Hey Duane,

It isn't a form, its just a process. The data from the XML is being
extracted based on a locale then injected into an email later down the
process.

It is using Workbench 10 on ADEP. I have the email to enterprise
support all ready to go but wanted to know if this is expected
behavior first.

Darren

On Dec 2, 5:05 am, Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> What version of LC are you using before I take a look at the *.lca?  Can
> you just send the form?
>
> Duane
> Überity.com ­ Principle Data Architect

> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultanthttp://technoracle.blogspot.com
> @duanechaos

[Matt MacKenzie]

I think this is a bug, I'd not expect to get the entire node string in that case. I recommend contacting support.

-matt

[Duane Nickull]

+1

Adobe Support should be contacted.
________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @duanechaos

[Darren]

Thanks guys. I thought it might be.

On Dec 2, 8:27 am, Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> +1
>
> Adobe Support should be contacted.
> ________________________________________
>
> Überity.com

> Principal Data Architecthttp://www.uberity.com

> Blog |http://technoracle.blogspot.com
> Twitter | @duanechaos
>

[RobMcD]

I tried to log this as a bug back in November of last year. The
official response that came back from Adobe was that "Livecycle does
not support CDATA, so they've logged an enhancement request for a
future release. "

The enhancement request # is 2787708.

I was not very pleased with that response - how can you say you
support XML without supporting CDATA sections? - but I figured out a
workaround and had other fish to fry so I let it drop.

If you need to reference my original case with Adobe support, it was
case #181918090. I was unhappy with the response, so I requested a
Bug Request Review (case #182119634) which came back with the same
response.

I wish you better luck than I had.

Regards,
Rob

Rob McDougall | Senior Technical Architect | 4Point | www.4Point.com

[Duane Nickull]

The answer to this:

On 11-12-02 7:50 AM, "RobMcD" <rmcd...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>I was not very pleased with that response - how can you say you
>support XML without supporting CDATA sections? - but I figured out a
>workaround and had other fish to fry so I let it drop.

Is you cannot. The W3C XML Specification is very terse WRT the rules of
parsing. CDATA is to be treated very differently than PCDATA. In either
case, the path does not correspond to the fragment returned.

Does anyone know which library they use for xPath/XSLT? Was it
Xerces.jar?

Duane

[Darren]

Its Xerces according to this: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/building-xml.html

Its supposed to support DOM Level 2 version 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/
DOM-Level-2-Core/core.html#ID-667469212)

Same as Rob I have created a workaround which is to basically HTML
Encode any HTML Email content I wanted in the XML. Pretty clunky but
it works and there are plenty of HTML Encoders on the web.

I still have an open ticket so I will let you know how it goes.

Darren

On Dec 3, 3:36 am, Duane Nickull <duane.nick...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The answer to this:
>

[RobMcD]

>> Is you cannot.  The W3C XML Specification is very terse WRT the rules of
>> parsing.  CDATA is to be treated very differently than PCDATA. In either
>> case, the path does not correspond to the fragment returned.

Yes, that was my position as well, however that was the answer I got
back and there was no movement on it. Clearly someone in the process
didn't understand XML well enough to understand why this is a bug.

>> Does anyone know which library they use for xPath/XSLT?  Was it
>> Xerces.jar?
>>

> Its Xerces according to this: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/building-xml.html
> Its supposed to support DOM Level 2 version 1.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/
> DOM-Level-2-Core/core.html#ID-667469212)

Ahh, now we hit the subtle part. Duane asks the right question, but
then suggests the wrong answer. Xerces is an XML parser and doesn't
have an inherent XPath implementation. Xalan is Apache's XPath
implementation.

My recollection (from my investigation) is that the problem is not in
the way that the XML is parsed, but rather it's an XPath
implementation issue. The DOM code rightly treats the CDATA section
as a separate node however, the XPath spec indicates that XPath
expressions should ignore the CDATA nodes and only pay attention to
the content within. That's where I believe the problem is. Their
XPath implementation is not bypassing the CDATA node to look at the
content inside that CDATA section. It's making the CDATA node visible
when it shouldn't.

I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming that they rolled their own
XPath implementation. Certainly, there are a lot less functions
available than in any of the standard implementations I'm familiar
with. That's where I think the problem lies.

[Duane Nickull]

Rob:

Correct. My mistake. I could never figure out how come everyone wanted
their XML libs to start with an "X". Found it confusing. It was a
relatively popular activity in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Your hypothesis sounds solid. To fully test it perhaps he could use
something like JDOM to run tests against the in-memory DOM could validate
that the problem is not in the parsing and DOM building but rather the
Xpath implementation. JDOM has simple methods to detach and return
various parts of the DOM.

What makes me wonder though is that Xalan.jar is included in the LC SDK if
memory serves me correctly. I am not sure if it is used in the core also
but it would be really bad architecture IMO to mix two different Xpath
implementations. Did Adobe actually confirm they did this? Not saying
they wouldn't, just find it surprising they would.

Duane
________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect &
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services

http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @duanechaos

[RobMcD]

> What makes me wonder though is that Xalan.jar is included in the LC SDK if> memory serves me correctly.

You're right it's there.

>  I am not sure if it is used in the core also> but it would be really bad architecture IMO to mix two different Xpath> implementations.

Agreed.

>  Did Adobe actually confirm they did this?  Not saying> they wouldn't, just find it surprising they would.>

No, we didn't get into that level of detail.  Whether the CDATA node
should or should not be visible at the DOM level or the XPath level
was a subtle level of detail I didn't think would be worth trying to
explain to the support organization. :)
It could be a Xalan bug, I suppose.  It just doesn't seem like the
sort of mistake someone steeped in XML would make.  It seems more like
the sort of problem an outsider implementing an XPath processor would
make.  But that's just IMHO.

[Duane Nickull]

I have serious doubts such a blatant violation of xPath would be allowed
to exist in the open source xalan.jar repository. I concur with your
opinion.

;-)
________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect &
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @duanechaos

[Darren]

This was the response I received from support today:

[snip]

I have discussed this issue with escalations and have below
suggestions for you.

All text in an XML document will be parsed by the parser. But text
inside a CDATA section will be ignored by the parser.

Please refer to the following link for a more detailed information on
the same:

http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_cdata.asp

Let me know in case of any issues or concerns.

[/snip]

"Escalations" seriously came up with this answer?

On Dec 7 2011, 4:27 am, Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> I have serious doubts such a blatant violation of xPath would be allowed
> to exist in the open source xalan.jar repository.  I concur with your
> opinion.
>
> ;-)
> ________________________________________
>
> Überity.com
> Principal Data Architect &

> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Serviceshttp://www.uberity.com

> Blog |http://technoracle.blogspot.com
> Twitter | @duanechaos
>

[Kai Koenig]

> "Escalations" seriously came up with this answer?

You wouldn't believe some of the stuff I regularly get back from escalations of Adobe Enterprise support for Connect... Adobe's Enterprise support's responses more often than not are of rather low/useless quality :-(

Kai

[Duane Nickull]

Kai et al,

Sadly, I believe it. That is why we set up this community list in the
first place. I am not sure what will happen given a lot of the people who
formerly helped the community are no longer working for Adobe.

If anyone is really stuck, Uberity (my new company) employs some former
rock star LiveCycle engineers and developers who were recently liberated
during the layoffs. They are the cream of the crop and can offer services
for hire related LC ES. We are working on a few different projects and
can do anything from installs to multi week projects involving multiple
products (LC ES with custom mobile development).

We're here and open for business.

Duane
________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect &
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @duanechaos

[Darren]

Thanks guys, I have been here before as well but I just cant believe
after all the effort I went to in describing the bug and giving them
coherent examples, they decide that insulting me over my knowledge of
what CDATA was is the best way to make me go away. I feel sorry for
Support as they have to somehow tell the customer that a known bug
just wont be fixed.

I had an interesting discussion at MAX with Chuck Myers about how we
are treated as Livecycle Developers and said it felt like we were
"second-class" citizens within Adobe. Unfortunately this example just
highlights that.

I'm not giving up as I have a few escalation points left here in Oz. I
have my workaround, but its the principle of the thing now.

Darren

On Jan 11, 3:36 am, Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> Kai et al,
>
> Sadly, I believe it.  That is why we set up this community list in the
> first place.  I am not sure what will happen given a lot of the people who
> formerly helped the community are no longer working for Adobe.
>
> If anyone is really stuck, Uberity (my new company) employs some former
> rock star LiveCycle engineers and developers who were recently liberated
> during the layoffs.  They are the cream of the crop and can offer services
> for hire related LC ES.  We are working on a few different projects and
> can do anything from installs to multi week projects involving multiple
> products (LC ES with custom mobile development).
>
> We're here and open for business.
>
> Duane
> ________________________________________
>
> Überity.com
> Principal Data Architect &

> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Serviceshttp://www.uberity.com

[Duane Nickull]

Unfortunately, even uber-gurus and ultra helpful community guys like Chuck
Meyers were let go as part of the Nov 8 layoffs when I got laid off.

I am truly sorry to hear this. I spent 8 years of my life building the
LiveCycle brand and building a reputation for fast and quick help via this
list and fellow community members. I hope the escalations work.

Duane

________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect &
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @duanechaos

[tarekahf]

Hi all,

Let me make sure I understand what I read a while ago?

Are you saying that Chunk Meyers and Duane Nickll are no longer
working for Adobe ?

Let me share my experience dealing with Adobe Enterprise Support.

I dealt with them many times, and they never failed me. They always
supported me and provided me with a solution for my problem. (Note: I
am using Adobe LiveCycle Desinger and Adobe RES).

Just about a few months back, they requested me to contact the Local
Adobe Partner for first line support, but I was not sure why. Is this
related to Nov 8 layoffs?

Tarek.

On Jan 11, 4:12 am, Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately, even uber-gurus and ultra helpful community guys like Chuck
> Meyers were let go as part of the Nov 8 layoffs when I got laid off.
>
> I am truly sorry to hear this.  I spent 8 years of my life building the
> LiveCycle brand and building a reputation for fast and quick help via this
> list and fellow community members. I hope the escalations work.
>
> Duane
>
> ________________________________________
>
> Überity.com
> Principal Data Architect &

> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Serviceshttp://www.uberity.com
> Blog |http://technoracle.blogspot.com
> Twitter | @duanechaos
>

> >http://groups.google.com/group/livecycle?hl=en.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Duane Nickull]

I can no longer speak for Adobe but I can confirm that myself, Chuck
Meyers, Sydney Sloan, Ben Watson, Matt MacKenzie, Mark Doherty, Keith
Sutton, Doug Winnie, Anne Petteroe, Crawford Lodge and hundreds of others
(some of whom you know by different screen names) were all laid off by
Adobe.

Adobe enterprise support used to be fairly good but there were times when
this forum was a better place to get fast response. This is not a bad
thing; peer to peer support is good for any product. I would never speak
negatively about Adobe but I do not agree with their latest business
decisions. Building trust in the enterprise is a tricky business and I
believe we did well from 2003 - 2011. There was always room for
improvement. For me, I have had to scale back on answering questions on
this forum about LC as it is no longer my job. Adobe made a conscious
decision to lay off people like me who helped you but in all fairness,
they believe they are making a good business move. I have never run a $4
billion/year company so who am I to argue.

Even today, they announced 224 layoffs.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19706210

They have stated they are going to focus on marketing
http://www.itjoblog.co.uk/blogadmin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=Goo
gle%20Apps
http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2011/12/28/the-year-that-was-2011/

My own take is here:
http://technoracle.blogspot.com/2011/11/goodbye-adobe-we-had-fun.html

I had an excellent boss (ben Forta) and got to work with some great
people. Like all good things though, it comes to an end sometime. This
is an opportunity for me and Uberity is now a top firm employing some of
the smartest former Adobe LiveCycle Engineers. We have staked part of our
business model on LC work and this is something that we owe Adobe a lot
for (training us, building our public profiles etc.). You also have great
companies like Avoka who stuck with LC ES through thick and thin to serve
customers and developers.

I don't believe anything malicious was planned by the re-focus.

So where does this leave us? Customers first need to go through proper
channels to get help (adobe support). As a second tier, there is an
enterprise evangelism team that is staffed with very talented people like
Michael Chaize. As a last resort, you may have to contract for support
with third parties and ask for help here on this forum. I am not sure
what the long term commitment is to solve bugs is and perhaps someone who
can speak for Adobe can chime in here.

4Points, Avoka, Uberity, Synergy, Skunkwerks, Ensemble et al are here to
help you. We all can help with minor issues on this list (free advice)
and also offer paid enterprise class support if required. The only thing
we cannot do is to fix bugs. Together, we can focus our request though to
help Adobe understand the critical issues. We can also work together to
find and share workarounds. This is good for all of us.

Let's keep this forum alive to keep Adobe honest and help them help us.
It is a win-win for all.

My $0.02 worth.

Duane

________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect &
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @duanechaos

[tarekahf]

Hi Duane,

Thanks for the detailed reply. This gives me better insight about how
to proceed forward.

I found this article which explains a bit about recent changes within
Adobe:

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

I hope that what happend will be for better future for all concerned,
and sometimes, change is good:

http://www.changeisgoodmovie.com/

Appreciate your advice about our situation knowing that we are using:

1. Adobe LiveCycle Desinger ES2

2. Adobe Reader Extensions Server ES

3. Heavily depending on Acrobat and Reader and its integration with
IE8.

A lot of key staff and management staff at work are pushing for
SharePoint/Infopath to be used instead of Adobe XFA Forms, and I am
sure they will use this recent developments in Adobe to justify moving
away from the investment we made in Adobe.

How do you recommend me to react against such initiative?

Tarek.

On Jan 11, 9:20 am, Duane Nickull <du...@uberity.com> wrote:
> I can no longer speak for Adobe but I can confirm that myself, Chuck
> Meyers, Sydney Sloan, Ben Watson, Matt MacKenzie, Mark Doherty, Keith
> Sutton, Doug Winnie, Anne Petteroe, Crawford Lodge and hundreds of others
> (some of whom you know by different screen names) were all laid off by
> Adobe.
>
> Adobe enterprise support used to be fairly good but there were times when
> this forum was a better place to get fast response. This is not a bad
> thing; peer to peer support is good for any product.   I would never speak
> negatively about Adobe but I do not agree with their latest business
> decisions.  Building trust in the enterprise is a tricky business and I
> believe we did well from 2003 - 2011.  There was always room for
> improvement. For me, I have had to scale back on answering questions on
> this forum about LC as it is no longer my job.  Adobe made a conscious
> decision to lay off people like me who helped you but in all fairness,
> they believe they are making a good business move.  I have never run a $4
> billion/year company so who am I to argue.
>

> Even today, they announced 224 layoffs.http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19706210
>
> They have stated they are going to focus on marketinghttp://www.itjoblog.co.uk/blogadmin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&sear...
> gle%20Appshttp://www.peterelst.com/blog/2011/12/28/the-year-that-was-2011/

> Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Serviceshttp://www.uberity.com
> Blog |http://technoracle.blogspot.com
> Twitter | @duanechaos
>

> >> >http://groups.google.com/group/livecycle?hl=en.-Hide quoted text -

[Duane Nickull]

I started typing a reply to this email several times and have had to be
careful and change what I say.

To answer your question, it might be a better option to ask someone from
Adobe to clarify things. My concern is the future of LiveCycle and from
what I read in the news, Adobe is moving away from it in the long term. I
do not speak for them.

Ref: "Adobe will cut 750 jobs and reduce its investment in enterprise
software" -
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/243428/adobe_to_reduce_enterp
rise_software_investment.html

What does this mean? Again, I don't speak for Adobe but if I had to defend
a decision to use LC as opposed to something that another vendor is
committed to grow, LC better have some value proposition to rationalize
it. I've never run a $4billion/year company and had to make hard
decisions so I cannot be judgemental nor will I speak badly of Adobe. I
loved working there and loved my job.

Perhaps someone from Adobe can speak to this forum and let us know what
the plans are? I have not seen anything official for a while.

Duane
________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect &
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
Blog | http://technoracle.blogspot.com
Twitter | @duanechaos

[Matt MacKenzie]

All BS aside, some of us that got let go are happy about it. And thats all I will say about it without free beer :-)

If *I* were an Adobe customer, and I received the message below, I would certainly reference the XML standard, and if the support team I was contacting brushed me off I would use that information wisely. Use your imagination.

Adobe's support folks are good people. They may not all have good training on the product, however. Don't be afraid to escalate the escalation. Talk to your CEO, he knows what to do. If you are a customer, you have rights, and in Adobe's case I know that if an issue actually gets raised through the support system to engg, it WILL get solved. Support doesn't always escalate to Engg, and in some cases that is bad.

-matt

[Davidson, Jerry]

My own experience (as of yesterday) with tech support from Adobe is not
a good story. First, there is the language barrier as I have a hard
time understanding what he is saying. Second is the procedural
expertise or lack of it. The technician I spoke with didn't know the
difference between the tracking number and our contract number. Since
he didn't know how to use the tracking system, he suggested I send him
the form I'm having problems with (posted here 12/27). I told him it
was already included in the system as I had uploaded it when I created
the problem ticket.

I don't get the warm and fuzzies when the guy that should know doesn't
know the procedures he is suppose to be following. I can live,
unhappily, with the tech guy not knowing the specific problem/product as
everyone can't know everything. But I do question that person not
knowing their companies (or the company that hires the company that
hires him) procedures such as a problem tracking system.

[RobMcD]

Let me paraphrase what I've told others when the subject of the recent
changes at Adobe have come up:

The news isn’t all bad (although it was bad for my Adobe friends -
both here in Ottawa and elsewhere in North America like Duane, Chuck
and Matt). If you haven’t already seen them, here’s a couple of links
that indicate that things aren't as bleak for LiveCycle as one might
imagine:
http://blogs.adobe.com/ADEP/2011/11/livecycle-business-update.html
http://www.underprise.com/2011/11/11/the-future-of-adobe-livecycle/

As an Adobe Gold Solution Partner we've been briefed by Adobe on the
changes. From a customer point of view not much has changed.
LiveCycle is not in “maintenance mode”, it is and will continue to be
actively developed. They still have a new release planned for next
year. In fact, they just released SP1 for LiveCycle 10 (ADEP) back in
December. They have the same number of developers working on
LiveCycle now as they did a few months ago before the layoffs, those
developers are just located in India rather than in North America.

The big changes are that a) the development team is now co-located
with the QA team in India, b) the marketing budget is greatly reduced
and c) the development and marketing will be more focused on the
government and financial services.

My heart goes out to those that were laid off. I've been there. I
have experienced what they have been, and are going, through. I'm
glad that many seem to have landed on their feet.

The changes in the LiveCycle business plan and the layoffs came as a
surprise to many current and prospective LiveCycle customers but, as
happens with most surprises, the initial shock makes it seem like
things are worse than they really are.

Regards,

Rob

Rob McDougall | Senior Technical Architect | 4Point | www.4Point.com

[RobMcD]

Hey Darren,

I know it's frustrating, but I'm sure that whoever you are dealing
with at Adobe is not intending to be insulting.  They're doing the
best they can but they probably don't have the education nor the
experience that you do.

I was faced with the same question of whether to pursue this with them
or not.  In the end, it's a pretty subtle bug to someone who doesn't
know XML that well.  I felt that very few customers are likely to run
across it and since I had a workaround I decided not to waste any more
time and energy on the issue.

You'll have to decide for yourself, but try to look at it objectively
when you decide.

Regards,
Rob
Rob McDougall | Senior Technical Architect | 4Point | www.4Point.com

[Darren]

Hi Rob,

I am sure the support guys are just passing on whatever they are being
told by whoever "Escalations" are. I don't hassle the support guys
directly (because they cop enough already i'm sure) but get them to
pass on to Escalations my detailed descriptions of the problems. I
have spoken with support on many occasions and they are usually very
helpful when they are armed with a good workaround or a fix. I figured
out a workaround for this bug as well, but decided to pursue this to
see what the end result would be.

This is more about how they communicate to their developer base. First
line support *should* always escalate issues they cant resolve
themselves. You escalate to someone who has enough knowledge to
comment on the case. From what it looks like, "Escalations" couldn't
be bothered reading all of the emails and sent me the W3Schools link
without even reading my first email. If they had read that they would
know that I presented enough information to be well versed in XML
standards and what CDATA was and what the bug was. This is why I
thought it was a bit insulting. I'm sure the support guy was just
passing on someone else's information.

A little update on the case - I emailed them again quoting them the
XML W3C standards and the fact that it is obviously a bug and they now
say I have to log a CCR (customer commit request) with our local Sales
Rep to have the issue looked at. Not sure what that is but I'm seeing
if we can get one and get this fixed with the other active development
they are apparently doing on the product.

As a developer, I am happy knowing that I have found a bug in
someone's software and to know that at some stage it will be worked on
and rolled out in a future release (whenever that might be). It's part
of what I do as a job too. When I get rejected out of hand I start
questioning their commitment to their user base and to a products
future in general.

Cheers,
Darren

[Duane Nickull]

Thanks Rob. Just to clarify, please do not feel bad for me or Matt. We
are actually very happy to be liberated and are enjoying our new work at
Uberity. I wake up every day and am genuinely happy and look forward to
the days work.

I would really like to hear what the future commitment to LiveCycle is
from Adobe directly.

Duane
________________________________________

Überity.com
Principal Data Architect &
Adobe LiveCycle ES Consultant Services
http://www.uberity.com
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[Matt MacKenzie]

Dave Welch was my manager at Adobe, and he is now heading up the LiveCycle business. I spoke to him around Dec 9 (my last day), and it certainly seems that Adobe is still supporting and pursuing LiveCycle as a business. It would be inappropriate to comment further, but as far as I know, its still on in a big way and with a healthy partner ecosystem including companies such as our own, 4point, Avoka, etc… customers shouldn't be concerned.

LiveCycle presents a fantastic feature set for many use cases, and will continue to be a logical choice for the foreseeable future.

--
Matt

[Matt MacKenzie]

I'd also add that laid off employees starting to build a company around LiveCycle is a strong indicator of the software's health.

I have lots of other things I could be doing :-)

-matt

[Duane Nickull]

Exactly the answer I had hoped for! Now I don't feel as bad about getting
the LC tattoo.

;-p

[Matt MacKenzie]

Well, I'd probably rethink any tattoos. For any software, really. Just stick to shaving the logo into the back of your head.

:-)

[RobMcD]

>  they now say I have to log a CCR (customer commit request) with our local Sales
> Rep to have the issue looked at. Not sure what that is but I'm seeing
> if we can get one and get this fixed with the other active development
> they are apparently doing on the product.

A Customer Commit Request typically comes from a sales rep to
engineering asking them to commit to making a change, usually tied to
a specific release. It get reviewed by the engineering group and
either signed off or rejected. If it's signed off, then they're
committing to make the change happen in the release they said it
would. If it gets rejected then they don't feel they can do it for
one reason or another (sometimes schedule or sometimes because it is
doesn't match where they feel they want to take the product).

Generating a CCR is probably good for you as it's more definitive than
say, a bug report. CCRs pretty much always get actioned whereas bug
reports can linger if the bug does not have a high priority.

CCRs are usually tied to potential sales (i.e. the customer promises
to buy something if Adobe promises to change something). If yours is
not, it may be a bit harder to push through however given the
technical nature of the people who review the CCRs you may find that
they better understand your problem too. It's probably worth your
effort if you can get your Sales Rep to create one.

[Willem-Paul Stuurman]

Hi guys,

Anyone looking for an answer on how to get CDATA contents using xpath in the Livecycle Workbench, this is how we 'solved' it:

substring-before(substring-after(serialize(xpath_to_cdata_node, false), "CDATA["), "]]")

Yes, it's ugly but it get's the job done without additional steps in the process.

Cheers,

WP

Op donderdag 1 december 2011 03:56:25 UTC+1 schreef Darren het volgende:

Hi guys - am having a weird issue with CDATA in XML and cant work out
if it is a bug (sorry - Feature) of Workbench or if it is expected
behavior. It easier to demonstrate in a simple LCA:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7636567/CDATABug_1-0_2011-12-01-1346.lca (just
import and run CDATABug process)

But basically if I try to extract an XML Node value from some XML that
contains a CDATA tag using XPath, then the variable assignment returns
the XML header and the whole Node XML I was querying. If the exact
same query is done without the CDATA tags in the Node, the Node's
value is returned only.

e.g.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Locales>
        <Locale lang="cdata" default="true">
                <PDFEmail>
                        <EmailBody><![CDATA[This is some text]]></EmailBody>
                </PDFEmail>
        </Locale>
        <Locale lang="nocdata">
                <PDFEmail>
                        <EmailBody>This is some text</EmailBody>
                </PDFEmail>
        </Locale>
</Locales>

/process_data/xmlData/Locales/Locale[@lang='cdata']/PDFEmail/
EmailBody

Returns: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><EmailBody><!
[CDATA[This is some text]]></EmailBody>

/process_data/xmlData/Locales/Locale[@lang='nocdata']/PDFEmail/
EmailBody

Returns: This is some text

[Willem-Paul Stuurman]

Hi guys,

 

Just found out there is an another, easier, way. A post on stackoverflow got me on to this: simply use the XSLT component in a process to 'convert' the incoming xml to the same xml. This will automagically convert all CDATA tags to encoded text tags which of course can than accessed used xpath without any problems.

 

I used the exact xslt given in the answer in the XSLT component and it works like a charm.

 

Here's the direct link to the answer on stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/a/10543572

 

Cheers

 

WP

Op donderdag 11 april 2013 15:12:15 UTC+2 schreef Willem-Paul Stuurman het volgende: