How to checkout and checkin any document outside alfresco using rest API? - web-services

Question

I have created one Web Application using Servlets and JSP. Through that I have connected to alfresco repository. I am also able be to upload document in Alfresco and view document in external web application.
Now my requirement is, I have to give checkin and checkout option to those documents.
I found below rest apis for this purpuse.
But I am not getting how to use these apis in servlets to full-fill my requirment.
POST /alfresco/service/slingshot/doclib/action/cancel-checkout/site/{site}/{container}/{path}
POST /alfresco/service/slingshot/doclib/action/cancel-checkout/node/{store_type}/{store_id}/{id}
Can anyone please provide the simple steps or some piece of code to do this task?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Please do not use the internal slingshot URLs for this. Instead, use OpenCMIS from Apache Chemistry. It will save you a lot of time and headaches and it is more portable to other repositories besides Alfresco.
The example below grabs an existing document by path, performs a checkout, then checks in a new major version of the plain text document.
package com.someco.cmis.examples;
import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.client.api.Document;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.client.api.ObjectId;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.client.api.Repository;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.client.api.Session;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.client.api.SessionFactory;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.client.runtime.SessionFactoryImpl;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.commons.SessionParameter;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.commons.data.ContentStream;
import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.commons.enums.BindingType;
public class CheckoutCheckinExample {
private String serviceUrl = "http://localhost:8080/alfresco/api/-default-/public/cmis/versions/1.1/atom"; // Uncomment for Atom Pub binding
private Session session = null;
public static void main(String[] args) {
CheckoutCheckinExample cce = new CheckoutCheckinExample();
cce.doExample();
}
public void doExample() {
Document doc = (Document) getSession().getObjectByPath("/test/test-plain-1.txt");
String fileName = doc.getName();
ObjectId pwcId = doc.checkOut(); // Checkout the document
Document pwc = (Document) getSession().getObject(pwcId); // Get the working copy
// Set up an updated content stream
String docText = "This is a new major version.";
byte[] content = docText.getBytes();
InputStream stream = new ByteArrayInputStream(content);
ContentStream contentStream = session.getObjectFactory().createContentStream(fileName, Long.valueOf(content.length), "text/plain", stream);
// Check in the working copy as a major version with a comment
ObjectId updatedId = pwc.checkIn(true, null, contentStream, "My new version comment");
doc = (Document) getSession().getObject(updatedId);
System.out.println("Doc is now version: " + doc.getProperty("cmis:versionLabel").getValueAsString());
}
public Session getSession() {
if (session == null) {
// default factory implementation
SessionFactory factory = SessionFactoryImpl.newInstance();
Map<String, String> parameter = new HashMap<String, String>();
// user credentials
parameter.put(SessionParameter.USER, "admin"); // <-- Replace
parameter.put(SessionParameter.PASSWORD, "admin"); // <-- Replace
// connection settings
parameter.put(SessionParameter.ATOMPUB_URL, this.serviceUrl); // Uncomment for Atom Pub binding
parameter.put(SessionParameter.BINDING_TYPE, BindingType.ATOMPUB.value()); // Uncomment for Atom Pub binding
List<Repository> repositories = factory.getRepositories(parameter);
this.session = repositories.get(0).createSession();
}
return this.session;
}
}
Note that on the version of Alfresco I tested with (5.1.e) the document must already have the versionable aspect applied for the version label to get incremented, otherwise the checkin will simply override the original.