XProc 3.0: file steps

This specification describes the file related XProc steps. A machine-readable description of these steps may be found in steps.xpl.

Familarity with the general nature of [XProc 3.0] steps is assumed; for background details, see [XProc 3.0 Steps].

The p:file-copy step copies a file.

<p:declare-step type="p:file-copy">
     <p:output port="result" primary="true" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="href" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>        
     <p:option name="target" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>      
     <p:option name="fail-on-error" as="xs:boolean" select="true()"/>
</p:declare-step>

The p:file-copy step copies the file or directory named in href to the new name specified in target. If the target is a directory, the step attempts to move the file into that directory, preserving its base name.

It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the href or target option value is not a valid xs:anyURI. If the href or target is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-copy in the case of a syntactic shortcut value).

If the copy is successful, the step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of the target.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is true, one of the following errors is raised:

Document properties

No document properties are preserved.

The p:file-delete step deletes a file or a directory.

<p:declare-step type="p:file-delete">
     <p:output port="result" primary="true" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="href" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>        
     <p:option name="recursive" as="xs:boolean" select="false()"/> 
     <p:option name="fail-on-error" as="xs:boolean" select="true()"/>
</p:declare-step>

The p:file-delete step attempts to delete the file or directory named in href.

It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the href option value is not a valid xs:anyURI. If the href option is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-delete in the case of a syntactic shortcut value).

If href specifies a directory, it can only be deleted if the recursive option is true or if the specified directory is empty.

If the delete is successful, the step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of the deleted file or directory.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is true, one of the following errors is raised:

Document properties

No document properties are preserved.

The p:file-info step returns information about a file, directory or other file system object.

<p:declare-step type="p:file-info">
     <p:output port="result" primary="true" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="href" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>        
     <p:option name="fail-on-error" as="xs:boolean" select="true()"/>
</p:declare-step>

The p:file-info step returns information about the file, directory or other file system object named in the href option.

It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the href option value is not a valid xs:anyURI. If the href option is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-info in the case of a syntactic shortcut value).

If the href option is not a file: URI, the result is implementation defined.

If the href option is a file: URI, the step returns:

The following attributes are standard on a returned c:file or c:directory element. All attributes are optional and must be absent if not applicable. Additional implementation-defined attributes may be present, but they must be in a namespace.

Attribute	Type	Description
readable	xs:boolean	true if the object is readable.
writable	xs:boolean	true if the object file is writable.
hidden	xs:boolean	true if the object is hidden.
last-modified	xs:dateTime	The last modification time of the object expressed in UTC.
size	xs:integer	The size of the object in bytes.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is true, one of the following errors is raised:

Document properties

No document properties are preserved.

The p:file-mkdir step creates a directory.

<p:declare-step type="p:file-mkdir">
     <p:output port="result" primary="true" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="href" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>        
     <p:option name="fail-on-error" as="xs:boolean" select="true()"/>
</p:declare-step>

The p:file-mkdir create the directory named in the href option. If this includes more than one directory component, all of the intermediate components are created. The path separator is implementation-defined.

It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the href option value is not a valid xs:anyURI. If the href option is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-mkdir in the case of a syntactic shortcut value).

If the create is successful, the step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of the directory created.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is true, one of the following errors is raised:

Document properties

No document properties are preserved.

The p:file-move step moves a file or directory.

<p:declare-step type="p:file-move">
     <p:output port="result" primary="true" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="href" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>        
     <p:option name="target" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>      
     <p:option name="fail-on-error" as="xs:boolean" select="true()"/>
</p:declare-step>

The p:file-move step moves the file or directory named in href to the new location specified in target. If the target option specifies an existing directory, the step attempts to move the file or directory into that directory, preserving its base name.

It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the href or target option value is not a valid xs:anyURI. If the href or target is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-move in the case of a syntactic shortcut value).

If the href option specifies a device or other special kind of object, the results are implementation-defined.

If the move is successful, the step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of the target.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is true, one of the following errors is raised:

Document properties

No document properties are preserved.

The p:file-create-tempfile step creates a temporary file.

<p:declare-step type="p:file-create-tempfile">
     <p:output port="result" primary="true" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="href" as="xs:anyURI?"/>                       
     <p:option name="suffix" as="xs:string?"/>                     
     <p:option name="prefix" as="xs:string?"/>                     
     <p:option name="delete-on-exit" as="xs:boolean" select="false()"/>
     <p:option name="fail-on-error" as="xs:boolean" select="true()"/>
</p:declare-step>

The p:file-create-tempfile creates a temporary file. The temporary file is guaranteed not to already exist when the step is called.

If the href option is specified it must be the URI of an existing directory. The temporary file is created here. If there is no href option specified the location of the temporary file is implementation defined, usually the operating system's default location for temporary files.

It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the href option value is not a valid xs:anyURI. If the href is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-create-tempfile in the case of a syntactic shortcut value).

If the prefix option is specified, the filename will begin with that prefix. If the suffix option is specified, the filename will end with that suffix.

If the delete-on-exit option is true, an attempt will be made to automatically delete the temporary file when the processor terminates the pipeline. No error will be raised if this is unsuccessful.

If the temporary file creation is successful, the step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of this file.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is true, one of the following errors is raised:

Document properties

No document properties are preserved.

The p:file-touch step updates the modification timestamp of a file.

<p:declare-step type="p:file-touch">
     <p:output port="result" primary="true" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="href" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>        
     <p:option name="timestamp" as="xs:dateTime?"/>                
     <p:option name="fail-on-error" as="xs:boolean" select="true()"/>
</p:declare-step>

The p:file-touch step updates the modification timestamp of the fiel specified in the href option.

It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the href option value is not a valid xs:anyURI. If the href option is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-touch in the case of a syntactic shortcut value).

If the timestamp option is set, the file's timestamp is set to this value. Otherwise the file's timestamp is set to the current system's date and time.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is true, one of the following errors is raised:

Document properties

No document properties are preserved.

This step can raise dynamic errors.

[Definition: A dynamic error is one which occurs while a pipeline is being evaluated.] Examples of dynamic errors include references to URIs that cannot be resolved, steps which fail, and pipelines that exhaust the capacity of an implementation (such as memory or disk space). For a more complete discussion of dynamic errors, see Dynamic Errors in XProc 3.0: An XML Pipeline Language.

If a step fails due to a dynamic error, failure propagates upwards until either a p:try is encountered or the entire pipeline fails. In other words, outside of a p:try, step failure causes the entire pipeline to fail.

The following errors can be raised by this step: