A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 3.0

I was interested in how complex it might be to export work items and import them again. So I looked into this and enhanced the work item command line (WCL) to support this.

I found it quite challenging to develop this. There are a lot of things to consider, so I drove this to a point that was sufficient for my purposes. The tool is used by my team to import work items from a CSV file we receive every now and then.

I implemented another export/import mode with some more capabilities and it works in tests, but is by no means production ready. The amount of necessary tests and test automation to make this reliable, is just overwhelming. So this is not thoroughly tested.

So be careful if using these commands, and do a good amount of testing before actually using this. The problem is, there are so many possible use cases and dependencies that it is very hard to develop this kind of capability and to test it.

One special case is importing/creating links. Some links have constraints i.e. parent and especially child links. A work item can not have multiple parents. So setting child links can cause the save to fail if the new child has already a different parent.

Solution Overview

The work item command line WCL now supports two new commands

• exportworkitems
• importworkitems

To export work items to a CSV file and import work items from a CSV file.

I chose to use a CSV file, because RTC itself can export and import that format already. It would be ideal if export and import from XML would be supported as well, but this would require a substantial effort to abstract the export and import operations to be able to use a strategy (or some other useful pattern to support abstraction).

No Support or Maintenance

This is provided as-is with no support or guarantee. This is not a tool that is officially supported by IBM or any other organization.

Please note, that I have very little time to do this and testing is always lacking. So take the code published here with a grain of salt. On the positive side, you have the code, can debug and enhance it.

Compatibility

This code has been used with RTC 4.x and 5.x with no changes and it is pretty safe to assume, that the code will work with newer versions of RTC. The code requires two external libraries that need to be downloaded and installed separately.

License and Download

The post contains published code, so our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license. I found a section relevant to source code at the and of the license. Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee. Enjoy!

Update: Added switch to change the export and import formats for dates, see details below. I also added a switch to suppress attribute not found errors and other frequent errors during export.

Update: Fixed duration set problem. Version updated to 3.2

You can download the latest version from this post The RTC Work Item Command Line On Bluemix. The older version 3.0 can be found here:

• The packaged, executable application
  
• The Eclipse project with source code and all other files needed to build
  

Please note, there might be restrictions to access Dropbox and therefore the code in your company or download location.

Just Starting With Extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working. The code linked from this post contains Client API.

Setup and Usage

For the general setup follow the description in A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 and look at the additional setup steps below.

For usage follow the description in A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 and in A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2.1. Check the README.txt which is included in the downloads.

Export Work Items

The export work items command has the syntax

-exportworkitems {Switch} repository=”value” user=”value” password=”value” projectArea=”value” query=”value” exportFile=”value”  [columns=value] [encoding=value] [delimiter=value] [querysource=value]

Required Parameters are

• repository=”value” – the repository URI, for example repository=”https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm“
• user=”value” – The user ID of the user executing the command, for example user=”ralph”
• password=”value” – the password of the user, for example password=”password”
• projectArea=”value” –  The project area to export items from, for example projectArea=”JKE Banking (Change Management)”
• query=”value” – the name of the query to use, for example query=”All WorkItems”
• exportFile=”value” – The path of the export file, for example exportFile=”C:\aaTemp\Export\Test.csv”; the folder that contains the export file must exist

Optional Parameters are

• columns=value – The names or ID’s of the work item attributes to export; example columns=”Type,Id,Planned For,Filed Against,Description,Found In”; To specify the colums it is possible to use the name or the ID of the attribute, the switch headerIDs specifies the output format to use the ID instead of the name in the output; It is possible to use the values from an RTC Eclipse client export
• encoding=value – The encoding; default encoding=”UTF_16LE”; options see available charset names; if the encoding is chosen different for export and import, the values will not be recognizable
• delimiter=value – The delimiter to be used between the columns. Default is comma delimiter=”,”
• querysource=value – If the parameter is omitted the command searches a personal query with the given name; if the value is provided a query shared by the process area is searched, a complete path from the project area to the sharing process area must be provided, for example querysource=”JKE Banking(Change Management),JKE Banking(Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters”
• timestampFormat=value – To specify the time stamp format to be used; default “MMM d, yyyy hh:mm a”;  see SimpleDateFormat for the supported pattern

Available switches are:

• /ignoreErrors – Ignore minor errors in mapping and value lookup
• /asrtceclipse – Export in a format compatible to the RTC CSV export and import; if the switch is not provided, the data is exported in a format that is compatible with the syntax used by the work item command line WCL to identify elements; see A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 for the supported value representations
• /headerIDs – Export header values as attribute IDs and not as attribute names
• /suppressAttributeExceptions – Suppresses exceptions thrown for attributes that are not available on the work item type of for attribute types that are not yet implemented

Example

-exportworkitems /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)" exportFile="C:\aaTemp\Export\Test.csv" query="All" columns="workItemType,summary,Attachments"

Import Work Items

The import work items command has the syntax

-importworkitems{Switch} repository=”value” user=”value” password=”value” projectArea=”value” query=”value” importFile=”value”  [columns=value] [encoding=value] [delimiter=value] [querysource=value]

Required Parameters are

• repository=”value” – the repository URI, for example repository=”https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm“
• user=”value” – The user ID of the user executing the command, for example user=”ralph”
• password=”value” – the password of the user, for example password=”password”
• projectArea=”value” –  The project area to export items from, for example projectArea=”JKE Banking (Change Management)”
• importFile=”value” – The path of the import file, for example importFile=”C:\aaTemp\Export\Test.csv”

Optional Parameters are

• mappingFile=”value” – A RTC work item import mapping file, for example mappingFile=”C:\temp\mapping.xml”; the file must be generated by RTC and customized to match the value mapping
• encoding=value – The encoding; default encoding=”UTF_16LE”; options see available charset names; if the encoding is chosen different for export and import, the values will not be recognizable
• delimiter=value – The delimiter to be used between the columns. Default is comma delimiter=”,”
• timestampFormat=value – To specify the time stamp format to be used; default “MMM d, yyyy hh:mm a”;  see SimpleDateFormat for the supported pattern

Available switches are:

• /ignoreErrors – Ignore minor errors in mapping and value lookup
•  /importmultipass – Import the work items from the CSV file in a first iteration and build up a mapping for the ID’s provided in the import file and the actual ID’s created and recreate the work item links between the new work items based on that mapping in a second pass; the old work item ID for a work item has to be provided in a special column with header name com.ibm.js.oldid
• /forcelinkcreation – if no target work item can be found in the map, use the given ID to create the link
• /importdebug – Print more information during import attempts to help with finding issues
• /enforceSizeLimits – Attributes such as description and medium strings have size limits, if this switch is set, the importer tries to clip content to avoid exceptions due to the size limits

Example

-importworkitems  /enforceSizeLimits  /importmultipass  /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph projectArea="ImportTest1" importFile=""c:\aaTemp\ExportImport\TestExportAll.csv"

RTC Eclipse Compatible Export Mode

In mode asrtceclipse, all data is exported the way RTC would export them in Eclipse. This means that certain information for example links, team areas, iterations, attachments and other data is exported in a way that makes it hard to map to data in the repository.

The import command does its best to map based on names, but for complex hierarchical information such as iterations and team areas, there is currently no search implemented that will find the object successfully. It would be possible to implement such methods, with some effort.

Example: An iteration is part of a timeline. The timeline is needed to find the iteration within. If there is no information about the timeline, it would be required to iterate all timelines with a good chance of mismatch.

The import command will try to find things by name and ID, with the limitations above.

If the work item ID attribute is provided as a column the importer will try to find the work item and update it during the import.

Default Export Mode

In the default export mode, the RTC Work Item Command line export command exports the data in greater detail, which makes it easier for the importer to identify the item.

Attachments

In default mode, the attachment is exported as a file relative to the location of the generated csv file. The attachment is downloaded to a location ./attachments//. So for each exported work item with attachments, a separate folder is created. The attachments are stored in that folder and the export information in the csv file is created compatible to the WCL parameter format to allow later import of the attachments, including upload and applying the additional information.

Other Complex Items and Links

Other complex items such as iterations and team areas are also exported with a lot more details. An iteration is being exported as path, including the timeline and parent iterations. A team area is also exported as path containing the Project are name and parent team area names

Multi-Pass Import

Importing work items and recreating the link relationships between them is problematic, because while importing the work items the link target may not yet exist. To be able to import a set of work items and then recreate the linkage, it is necessary to do the import and then map the ID of the old work item to the ID of the new work item.

When using the RTC CSV importer in the Eclipse client, existing work items are provided with a # in front of the work item ID. To do an import and then recreate the links between the new work items (and not to the old ones in the import), a user would have to run the import without the links, then replace the work item ID’s in the import file by the new work item ID’s and update the work items with a second import. This is very manual and error prone.

The switch importmultipass  enables an import mode, where the WCL tries to create the links between the imported work items, rather to the old ones. It imports the work items in two passes. It creates the work items in the first pass and ignores the link creation. In the second pass it tries to create the links. For links between work items WCL tries to find the work items that were created during the import and tries to match the links to the new work items, where possible.

Note: Only links between work items are handled this way. Links to objects other than work items are recreated using the values provided in the import file.

To be able to do this, the import file has to provide the old work item ID of the work items that are imported. The import requires a special ID for the columns containing the old ID’s. The column header for this column has to be specified with com.ibm.js.oldid.

The import file below has been created using an export that included the ID of the work item in the export. The old column header for example ID of the column has been replaced by com.ibm.js.oldid. The work item links show the ID’s of the linked work items with their old ID’s.

The import works as follows.

The WCL runs the first pass and imports the work items. It stores the mapping between the original work item ID from the column com.ibm.js.oldid and the ID of the newly created work item in a map. Links are not created in this pass.

In the second pass WCL reads the import file again and only handles the columns that represent links. It detects if the link target represents a work item. If not, it tries to recreate the link as it is. If the link is a work item link, WCL tries to calculate if a new work item was created for the target using the map. If the work item was imported and a new ID is available, the new work item ID is used to create the link.

If the ID of the link target can not be found in the mapping, WCL can either ignore the link or it can try to create the link to the original work item. WCL supports these two modes. By default, the link is not created. If the switch forcelinkcreation is specified, the original value of the target work item ID is used as target for the link, if no mapping to a newly imported item was found.

Creating links is not trivial. One special case is importing/creating links. Some links have constraints i.e. parent and especially child links. A work item can not have multiple parents. So setting child links can cause the save to fail if the new child has already a different parent. This can create issues in import scenarios, especially if an export from the same repository is imported and the import causes child links to be created that have already another parent. In this case the import will fail with an error.

Limitations

Approvals and comments are imported into one comment. The effort to recreate approvals is just too big and I can’t see the added value.

Special Notes On Setup

For the general setup follow the description in A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 and look at the additional setup steps below.

The export and the import commands of WCL need two libraries that are not shipped the downloads.

If you use the packaged WCL and want to use the export/import capability follow the steps below to add the required libraries to the folder lib in the folder lib in the WCL folder.

If you use the Eclipse project for WCL and want to use the export/import capability follow the steps below to add the required libraries to the folder lib in the Eclipse project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.

The export and the import commands of WCL use the Open CSV Library. I had issues with the newer versions of Open CSV that I could not resolve, so this code assumes the version 2.3. Download the version 2.3 from here. Uncompress and untar the the file opencsv-2.3-src-with-libs.tar.gz you downloaded. Look for the folder opencsv-2.3\deploy\ copy the JAR file opencsv-2.3.jar and put it into the lib folder of your version of WCL.

The import commands of WCL can only provide the capability to use a mapping file by using a JAR file that only ships with the RTC Eclipse client and the SDK. The classes used for the mapping file capability are located in the library com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core.  Open the Install location of the RTC Eclipse client and search for com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core*. You should find a file names similar to this one: com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core_3.1.900.v20141010_0124.jar. The version numbers at the end could be different. Copy the JAR file into the into the lib folder of your version of WCL.

The packaged version should look like below.

If you have imported the Eclipse project for WCL open Configure Build Path and create a user library named openCSV and add the Open CSV library opencsv-2.3.jar. Create a user library named rtcmapping and add the com.ibm.team.workitem.rcp.core library you just copied to it.

Your Eclipse Project should now look like below.

Code Changes

During the work on import and export, the code structure was left untouched. Some classes were added to be able to handle the column header and some additional mapping of id’s and names i.e. for link types. In addition some of the code that was piling up in the WorkItemUpdateHelper (formerly known as WorkItemHelper) was moved to utility classes. this makes it also easier to look for useful API in case you are interested in how things work in the RTC API. See the scree shot below.

Summary

This WorkItem Command Line should allow for most of the automation needs when creating work items. In addition it is a nice resource for the RTC work Item API.

As always, I hope the post is an inspiration and helps someone out there to save some time. If you are just starting to explore extending RTC, please have a look at the hints in the other posts in this blog on how to get started.

A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2.2

Creating links is not easy. Many things can go wrong.  Testing by a user showed that there was an issue with links between work items and build results. I found that I got the link direction wrong. I fixed that. Here is the updated source code.

Latest Version

See A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 3.0 for the latest version.

Related posts

• Installing and using the WorkItemCommandLine Version 2.0
  
• The WorkItem Command Line Explained
  
• Extending the WorkItem Command Line With New Commands
  
• A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2.1
  

License

The post contains published code, so our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license. I found a section relevant to source code at the and of the license.

Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee.

On the other hand, you have the code and are able to add your own code to it. It would be nice to know what you did and how, if you do so.

Just Starting With Extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the code attached to this post in the development environment you set up in the Rational Team Concert Extensions Workshop and get your own extensions or automation working there as well.

Download

You can download the latest version here:

• The packaged, executable application
  
• The Eclipse project with source code and all other files
  

Setup and Usage

Follow the description in A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 and in A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2.1. Check the README.txt which is included in the downloads.

The WorkItem Command Line Explained

This post explains how the WorkItem Command Line works. It explains its structure and the main classes. This should allow users to extend the capabilities the code and add new commands or extend the current commands.

Please note, as this is work in progress, things might change slightly in future versions, however the general structure should persist.

Latest Version

See A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 3.0 for the latest version.

Related posts

• Installing and using the WorkItemCommandLine Version 2.0
  
• The WorkItem Command Line Explained – this post
• Extending the WorkItem Command Line With New Commands
  

License

The post contains published code, so our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license. I found a section relevant to source code at the and of the license.

Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee.

On the other hand, you have the code and are able to add your own code to it. It would be nice to know what you did and how, if you do so.

Just Starting With Extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the code attached to this post in the development environment you set up in the Rational Team Concert Extensions Workshop and get your own extensions or automation working there as well.

Importing The Project

Download the code from the post A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2. The file with the source code is named WorkItemCommandLine_Project-Vx-YYYYMMDD.zip. The x represents the version number and is followed by the date it was created. The file is an exported Eclipse project.

The project expects the Eclipse workspace to be set up as described in the posts Setting up Rational Team Concert for API Development. It requires the SDK to be set up as well as the Plain Java Client Libraries. The SDK is needed, because the project is a Plugin Project. this is done to be able to use the Eclipse Plugin Development Environment (PDE) to look at the API source code. The Plain Java Client Libraries are needed to run the code a Java application.

Use the Eclipse import File>Import. In the wizard window select “Existing Projects into Workspace” in the section General. Click Next and chose the option “Select archive file”, browse to the file you downloaded and select it. Make sure you see the project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline selected and press Finish to start the import.

After the import you should see the project in your workspace. You should see no errors in the project. If you see errors, the most likely reasons for that are:

1. The SDK is not set up correctly and the classes can not be resolved
2. The SDK version is prior to RTC 4.0.1
3. The Plain Java Client Libraries are not installed or the User Library has a different name

The first two will show in the plugin.xml and the manifest file. Setup the SDK correctly, or change the minimal versions needed in the dependencies.

The third will show as an error in the the build path. Define a user library named PlainJavaApi as explained in  Setting up Rational Team Concert for API Development or remove the existing user library entry and add you own. Make sure the dependency order of SDK and user library are correct as explained in  Understanding and Using the RTC Java Client API.

In case you have other errors you should search the internet for a solution.

Explore the Project

You can now explore the project. The folder structure is shown below.

There are the following files and folders

• src – contains the source code files.
• build – contains a jardesc file to build a jar file for packaging
• Launches – contains launch files used for testing
• License – contains the license files
• scripts – contains the script files used to start WCL, as well as a file with help information
• the root contains a readme file, explaining how to build a releasable version of WCL, scripts used to start WCL in the development setup and a test file for upload attachment tests.

The Source Files

The image below shows the structure of the source code.

The package com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline contains the class WirkitemCommandLine, which has the main method to call WCL. The class OperationResult is used to pass result information. This is necessary, since the code could run in RMI mode and the output needs to be transferred to the RMI client. This class needs to support serializing in order to pass the result back. IWorkItemCommandLineConstants contains various constants used by WCL.

The package com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.commands contains the classes that implement the currently available commands. CreateWorkItemCommand creates a work item of a specific type in a specific project area and sets the attributes as provided. PrintTypeAttributesCommand prints the attributes of a specific work item type in a specific project area. UpdateWorkItemCommand finds a work item and updates its attribute values.

The package com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.framework contains a basic framework that is used by commands that are implemented in WCL. The main class requires the interface IWorkItemCommand to run the command. I ended up using this kind of framework, because all commands required some kind of parameters. The command should be able to define the parameters needed. The commands also require to do error handling. To interact with the RTC repository commands also need to login. The framework handles all the common activities and allows to create new commands without having to redevelop all this.

The class AbstractCommand implements the interface IWorkItemCommand and leaves some methods abstract that extending classes need to implement.

The class AbstractTeamRepositoryCommand adds a login to the team repository and the class AbstractWorkItemModificationCommand adds a WorkItemOperation to perform the changes to the work item. WorkItemCommandLineException is the exception class that is used to wrap other exceptions and thrown in case of unrecoverable errors.

The package com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.helper contains helper classes. The class DevelopmentLineHelper is from another blog post Handling Iterations – Automation for the “Planned For” Attribute. It allows to find development lines and iterations on a development line. WorkItemHelper implements modifying work item attribute modification. Most of the RTC API related code is in there. WorkItemTypeHelper helps with printing the attribute information for a work item type.

The package com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.parameter contains classes that implement all the parameter handling needed. The class Parameter is used to describe a parameter, if it is required, if it was already consumed, if it is a switch and the like. ParameterIDMapper defines a list of aliases that can be used instead of an attribute ID. You can add your own aliases that can be used for convenience. ParameterList represents a list of parameters. The class ParameterManager manages a parameter list and provides the central access to the parameters. The class ParameterParser is used to parse the parameters passed from outside and store them in a parameter list.

The package com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.remote contains the remote interface IRemoteWorkItemOperationCall that is used in RMI mode.

The package com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.utils contains some utility classes (providing static methods as interfaces). The class ProcessAreaUtil allows to search process areas. The class SimpleDateFormatUtil helps with conversion of timstamps from and to a string representation.

 How The Code Works

The main method of the WorkitemCommandLine basically instantiates the class and then calls the method run(). We will look at that method later.

/**
 * The main entry point into the work item commandline
 * 
 * @param args
 *            - the arguments to be used by the commandline
 * @throws RemoteException
 */
public static void main(String[] args) {

	OperationResult result = new OperationResult();
	System.out.println("WorkItemCommandLine Version "
			+ IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.VERSIONINFO + "\n");
	WorkitemCommandLine commandline;
	try {
		commandline = new WorkitemCommandLine();
		result = commandline.run(args);
	} catch (RemoteException e) {
		result.appendResultString("RemoteException: " + e.getMessage());
		result.appendResultString(e.getStackTrace().toString());
	}
	System.out.println(result.getResultString());
	if (TeamPlatform.isStarted()) {
		TeamPlatform.shutdown();
	}
	if (!isServer()) {
		// If I am not in server mode, I need to exit and return success or
		// failure
		if (result.isSuccess()) {
			// If the operation was unsuccessful, terminate with an error
			System.exit(0);
		}
		System.exit(1);
	}
}

The operation run() will return a result if it terminates. The information in this result is used to create the exit code to terminate the call.

In case this WCL is started as RMI server, the process can not terminate with System.exit(). It needs to persist registered to the RMI registry. The static method isServer() is used to communicate this information.

The method run() parses the parameters passed. It then checks if it is supposed to run as RMI server or as RMI client. If that is the case it starts the RMI server mode or, uses RMI to call the server as client. If this is a normal run, it calls runCommands() with the parameters that have been parsed.

If started as RMI server, the method startRMIServer() is used to initialize RMI and to register the class to the registry. The method runOperation() is basically the interface that is used to run the command on the server and is called by RMI clients. The method runOperation() parses the parameters and calls runCommands() as well.

The method runCommands() really executes the command requested in the parameters.  The first steps it does is to initialize the data it needs. Then it runs addSupportedCommands() to add the commands that are available.

/**
 * Add the supported commands. If introducing a new command, add it here.
 * 
 * @param parameterManager
 */
private void addSupportedCommands(ParameterManager parameterManager) {
	addSupportedCommand(new PrintTypeAttributesCommand(
			new ParameterManager(parameterManager.getArguments())));
	addSupportedCommand(new CreateWorkItemCommand(new ParameterManager(
			parameterManager.getArguments())));
	addSupportedCommand(new UpdateWorkItemCommand(new ParameterManager(
			parameterManager.getArguments())));
}

Now the method runCommands() gets the command from the Parameter Manager. If there is a command string, it gets the class that implements the command. If there is a command registered for this command string, runCommand() calls the command to validate if the required parameters for it to run are available. If this is the case, runCommand() calls the command and returns the result back.

In all other cases runCommand() prepares a result error and also uses the method helpGeneralUsage() to print a help for the command.

Adding Commands to the WorkItemCommandLine

It is easy to add new commands to the WorkitemCommandLine. You need to implement a new command and add a new entry for it in the method addSupportedCommands().

How Commands Work

Commands have to implement the IWorkItemCommand interface. You should pick one of the abstract classes in the framework and extend them. This makes sure the basic workflow will work. If you command needs to create or modify a work item based on property values, use the class AbstractWorkItemModificationCommand. If you only need to have a repository connection, use the class AbstractTeamRepositoryCommand. In both cases all you need to do really is to override and implement the methods required. There are three things that need to be there.

In the method getCommandName() you need to return the name of the command you implement.

@Override
public String getCommandName() {
	return IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.COMMAND_CREATE;
}

If your command needs additional parameters, override the method setRequiredParameters(). Call the method of the superclass to have it add its required parameters and add your parameters. Here is an example

/*
 * (non-Javadoc)
 * 
 * @see com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.framework.
 * AbstractWorkItemCommandLineCommand#setRequiredParameters()
 */
public void setRequiredParameters() {
	super.setRequiredParameters();
	// Add the parameters required to perform the operation
	// getParameterManager().syntaxCommand()
	getParameterManager()
			.syntaxAddRequiredParameter(
					IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.PARAMETER_PROJECT_AREA_NAME_PROPERTY,
					IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.PARAMETER_PROJECT_AREA_NAME_PROPERTY_EXAMPLE);
	getParameterManager()
			.syntaxAddRequiredParameter(
					IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.PARAMETER_WORKITEM_TYPE_PROPERTY,
					IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.PARAMETER_WORKITEM_TYPE_PROPERTY_EXAMPLE);
	getParameterManager().syntaxAddSwitch(
			IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.SWITCH_IGNOREERRORS);
	getParameterManager().syntaxAddSwitch(
			IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.SWITCH_ENABLE_DELETE_ATTACHMENTS);
	getParameterManager().syntaxAddSwitch(
			IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.SWITCH_ENABLE_DELETE_APPROVALS);
}

Parameters added with syntaxAddRequiredParameter() will be assumed to be required. If they are not available the command line will show an error during the parameter validation. The error message is automatically created from the parameter information provided here.

Finally you have to override and implement the method process() to implement the command.

/*
 * (non-Javadoc)
 * 
 * @see com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.framework.
 * AbstractWorkItemCommandLineCommand#process()
 */
@Override
public OperationResult process() throws TeamRepositoryException {
	// Get the parameters such as project area name and Attribute Type and
	// run the operation
	String projectAreaName = getParameterManager()
			.consumeParameter(
					IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.PARAMETER_PROJECT_AREA_NAME_PROPERTY)
			.trim();
	// Find the project area
	IProjectArea projectArea = ProcessAreaUtil.findProjectArea(
			projectAreaName, getProcessClientService(), getMonitor());
	if (projectArea == null) {
		throw new WorkItemCommandLineException("Project Area not found: "
				+ projectAreaName);
	}

	String workItemTypeID = getParameterManager().consumeParameter(
			IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.PARAMETER_WORKITEM_TYPE_PROPERTY)
			.trim();
	// Find the work item type
	IWorkItemType workItemType = WorkItemHelper.findWorkItemType(
			workItemTypeID, projectArea.getProjectArea(),
			getWorkItemCommon(), getMonitor());
	// Create the work item
	createWorkItem(workItemType);
	return this.getResult();
}

To complete the code of this command, here is the method that creates the work item and uses the parameters to update the attributes.

/**
 * Create the work item and set the required attribute values.
 * 
 * @param workItemType
 * @return
 * @throws TeamRepositoryException
 */
private boolean createWorkItem(IWorkItemType workItemType)
		throws TeamRepositoryException {

	ModifyWorkItem operation = new ModifyWorkItem("Creating Work Item");
	this.setIgnoreErrors(getParameterManager().hasSwitch(
			IWorkItemCommandLineConstants.SWITCH_IGNOREERRORS));
	IWorkItemHandle handle;
	try {
		handle = operation.run(workItemType, getMonitor());
	} catch (TeamOperationCanceledException e) {
		throw new WorkItemCommandLineException("Work item not created. "
				+ e.getMessage(), e);
	}
	if (handle == null) {
		throw new WorkItemCommandLineException(
				"Work item not created, cause unknown.");
	} else {
		IWorkItem workItem = getAuditableCommon().resolveAuditable(handle,
				IWorkItem.SMALL_PROFILE, getMonitor());
		this.appendResultString("Created work item " + workItem.getId()
				+ ".");
		this.setSuccess();
	}
	return true;
}

In case you wonder where the actual work gets done – I wondered looking at it. The line

handle = operation.run(workItemType, getMonitor());

does all the work. By calling it this way, the WorkItemOperation creates the work item. The operation is based upon the code in the class AbstractWorkItemModificationCommand.

In that class, the execute() method is overwritten with this code:

/*
 * This is run by the framework
 * 
 * (non-Javadoc)
 * 
 * @see
 * com.ibm.team.workitem.client.WorkItemOperation#execute(com.ibm.team
 * .workitem.client.WorkItemWorkingCopy,
 * org.eclipse.core.runtime.IProgressMonitor)
 */
@Override
protected void execute(WorkItemWorkingCopy workingCopy,
		IProgressMonitor monitor) throws TeamRepositoryException,
		RuntimeException {
	// run the special method in the execute.
	// This is called by the framework.
	update(workingCopy);
}

The call to the method update() does the real work. It walks through all the unconsumed parameters in the parameter list – which should contain the attributes and values to be set and applies the changes to the work item.

/**
 * This operation does the main task of updating the work item
 * 
 * @param workingCopy
 *            the workingcopy of the workitem to be updated.
 * 
 * @throws RuntimeException
 * @throws TeamRepositoryException
 */
public void update(WorkItemWorkingCopy workingCopy)
		throws RuntimeException, TeamRepositoryException {

	ParameterList arguments = getParameterManager().getArguments();

	// We use a WorkItemHelper to do the real work
	WorkItemHelper workItemHelper = new WorkItemHelper(workingCopy,
			arguments, getMonitor());

	// Run through all properties not yet consumed and try to set the values
	// as provide
	for (Parameter parameter : arguments) {
		if (!(parameter.isConsumed() || parameter.isSwitch() || parameter
				.isCommand())) {
			// Get the property ID
			String propertyName = parameter.getName();
			// Get the property value
			String propertyValue = parameter.getValue();
			try {
				workItemHelper.updateProperty(propertyName, propertyValue);
			} catch (WorkItemCommandLineException e) {
				if (this.isIgnoreErrors()) {
					this.appendResultString("Exception! " + e.getMessage());
					this.appendResultString("Ignored....... ");
				} else {
					throw e;
				}
			} catch (RuntimeException e) {
				this.appendResultString("Runtime Exception: Property "
						+ propertyName + " Value " + propertyValue + " \n"
						+ e.getMessage());
				throw e;
			} catch (IOException e) {
				this.appendResultString("IO Exception: Property "
						+ propertyName + " Value " + propertyValue + " \n"
						+ e.getMessage());
				throw new RuntimeException(e.getMessage(), e);
			}
		}
	}
}

The Class WorkItemHelper

This class is basically doing all the work related to modifying work item data. The helper needs to be instantiated. Then the method updateProperty() can be called.

public void updateProperty(String propertyID, String value)
		throws TeamRepositoryException, WorkItemCommandLineException,
		IOException {
.
.
.
}

The method checks if the attribute is one of the special ones like the type, or complex attributes such as workflow or state changes, approvals or other pseudo attribute ID’s and handles these if detected. Otherwise it calls the method updateGeneralAttribute() to handle the update.

private void updateGeneralAttribute(ParameterValue parameter,
		List exceptions) throws TeamRepositoryException,
		WorkItemCommandLineException {
.
.
.
}

The method updateGeneralAttribute() checks if this attribute is actually available on the work item. If so it calls getRepresentation() to get a value that can be set for the attribute.

private Object getRepresentation(ParameterValue parameter,
		List exceptions) throws TeamRepositoryException,
		WorkItemCommandLineException {
.
.
.
}

The method getRepresentation() basically is a huge list of checks to narrow down what type the attribute to modify is. If the type is narrowed down, it calls a related methods to parse the input data and to create a value for the attribute, that can be returned and set.

Summary

This post explains how the code works and how you can utilize it to implement your own commands. As always, I hope that helps someone out there.

While creating this post, I realized, that I should have named some of the classes differently. This framework is not only good for a work item command line. This code could be used for any command line. Maybe I will adjust this a bit in later versions, should time permit.

A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2

After publishing the first version of the RTC WorkItem Command Line  I realized several things that users might want to do that were not supported. So I updated the version to 2.0 and added these capabilities. I also found an issue with setting string lists, which is also now fixed.

This post, like the previous, provides a simple Work Item Command Line Client and explains the usage. It comes with code, so you can also enhance it if you need more features.

Latest Version

See A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 3.0 for the latest version.

What’s new?

This version of the RTC WorkItem Command Line is complete as far as I am concerned.

• It still supports work item creation and update.
• It now supports all attribute types and the link types that I think can be supported. The missing Item types are now supported.
• It now supports several modes to modify the work item properties such as set the value, add to the available value or remove data.
• It supports a RMI server mode to enhance performance if multiple calls are needed
• It supports the RMI client mode to delegate requests to the RMI server portion.

Related posts

• Installing and using the WorkItemCommandLine Version 2.0 – this post
• The WorkItem Command Line Explained
  
• Extending the WorkItem Command Line With New Commands
  
• A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2.1
  

WorkItemCommandLine Summary

The WorkItemCommandLine – in short WCL – works on Windows and Unix clients. It requires a JDK and the Plain Java Client Libraries to be installed. Please note, I had issues running the Plain Java Client Libraries with just a JRE. You can try to use a JRE, if you like.

It currently allows to

• Create work items
• Update work items
• Show the attributes ID’s available for a work item type in a project area

The WCL allows to set and update all available attribute types (I am aware of) in RTC 4.x up to 5.0.2.

• String based attributes
• Number based attributes
• Enumeration and Enumeration List based attributes
• Tag based attributes
• Typed and untyped Item type attributes
• Typed and untyped ItemList type attributes
• ……

This works for built in attributes as well as for custom attributes.

In addition to these attribute types various not attribute based work item values can be modified:

• Subscription
• Comments
• Approvals
• Links to work items
• CLM links to work items
• CLM links to Requirements Management and Test artifacts and to SCM change sets
• Links from build results
• Attachments can be uploaded
• Trigger a workflow action

This should be sufficient for most of the automation needs, especially during builds.

The WCL supports the following operations modes on work item attributes:

• set – set the value of the attribute, overwriting or deleting existing information
• add – add values or data to the attribute
• remove – delete values or data from the attribute
• default – dependent on the type of the attribute set the value or add values

The WCL supports RMI where the WCL runs as a RMI server and WCL can delegate calls to that server to have them processed. This only requires starting the team platform once and saves several seconds in subsequent calls.

License

The post contains published code, so our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license. I found a section relevant to source code at the and of the license.

Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee.

On the other hand, you have the code and are able to add your own code to it. It would be nice to know what you did and how, if you do so.

Just Starting With Extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

Download

You can download the latest version here:

• The packaged, executable application
  
• The Eclipse project with source code and all other files
  

Setup

Download the packaged executable application. The file is compressed and will be named like wcl-Vx-YYYYMMDD.zip. The x represents the version number and is followed by the date it was created.

If you have installed an RTC API development environment following the RTC Extensions workshop and this post, you have all else that is needed and can use  the installs folder of your extension development install, for example C:\RTC401Dev\installs.

Extract the file e.g. using 7Zip to a folder, for example C:\RTCWCL (or C:\RTC401Dev\installs).

The destination folder should now contain a folder wcl.

If you don’t have an extension development environment set up, download and install the Plain Java Client Libraries for your version of RTC. Open the All Downloads tab of the RTC version you are interested in. For example https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/releases/4.0.1?p=allDownloads and scroll down to the Plain .zip Files section.

Download the Plain Java Client Libraries file.

Use 7Zip and unzip the Plain Java client Libraries download file (for example named RTC-Client-plainJavaLib-4.0.1.zip). Use 7Zips Extract Files command and provide the extraction Path C:\RTCWCL\PlainJavaAPI .

If you don’t have an extension development environment set up, download and install a Java JDK. If you have the Rational Team Concert client installed a compatible JDK is available in the install location e.g. TeamConcert\jazz\client\eclipse\jdk. The easiest way is to download the zip version of the Rational Team concert Client and extracting it to C:\RTCWCL\TeamConcert.

The folder should now look similar to this image.

Adjusting the Scripts to the Environment

If you downloaded a different JDK or have the RTC Eclipse client installed in a different location, follow the next steps to adjust the WCL to the different paths.

Open the folder created when extracting the WCL for example C:\RTCWCL\wcl. The folder contains the script files

• wcl.bat – for Windows clients
• wcl.sh – for client with Unix/*ux operating systems such as Linux
• rmi_no.policy – a RMI policy file
• README.txt – the online help printed in a file

Open the files relevant for your operating system. They should look similar to this:

The scripts assume an install structure where the JDK and the Plain Java Client Libraries are installed like in the image before. If your setup uses different paths, adjust then according to your setup. The scripts for usage with RMI only add a statement to the rmi_no.policy file.

On Unix operating systems chmod the shell scripts so that they are executable and the RMI policy is readable.

You should now be able to run the WorkItemCommandLine.

In order to allow RMI to work, WCL requires a policy file. Modify the file rmi_no.policy to your requirements and make sure it is in the same wcl folder on the server and the client. Make sure the policy file it is readable for the user that runs WCL.

Test the Environment

Open a shell or cmd window. change the directory to where you extracted WCL for example C:\RTCWCL\wcl. Type wcl and run the WorkItemCommandLine. The command should be executed and print help content like below.

If this does not happen, make sure the paths are set correctly and the JDK is compatible.

Please note, because the version 2.0 supports so much more, the help is very long and the windows shell can cut it off. To avoid this, you can

1. Redirect the output into a file for example by typing wcl>wcl_help.txt
2. Change the console setting to increase the size and buffer using mode con: lines=1100 cols=150

The README.txt is provided as help for convenience.

The Syntax of WCL

WCL uses the following syntax:

wcl – {/} {[:]=}

Where , at this time, can be

• create
• update
• printtypeattributes

The commands have their own requirements for base parameters such as repository URL, users, password and the like.

Switches

WCL provides several switches that influence the behavior. Some switches are command specific, others are general. Available values for are:

• ignoreErrors allows to successfully perform the create and update command if minor errors happen. Errors covered are for example if an optional attribute or its value was not found. If the flag is provided, WCL will continue to perform the next operations and print the error. If the flag is not provided any error will cause the operation to fail.
• enableDeleteAttachment enables deletion of attachments using the set or the remove mode.
• enableDeleteApprovals enables deletion of approvals using the set or the remove mode.
• rmiServer is used to start the RMI server, see the RMI section below.
• rmiClient is used to run the Workitem Command Line  against a RMI server instead of processing the command itself. See the RMI section below

Parameters

Values for are usually the ID of a work item attribute. The WCL defines various pseudo attribute names, typically prefixed with an @ e.g. to create links and upload files as attachment. The reason for the prefix is that RTC does not allow to start attribute ID’s with special characters and this makes it impossible to define custom attributes with conflicting names.

The parameter sections = must not have spaces in the or in the or before or after the =. The value of , or the whole term can be enclosed in quotation marks “.

Parameter and value example:

projectArea=”JKE Banking (Change Management)”

Each parameter can only be used once in the command line. In some cases like attachment uploads a special section needs to be added in the parameter to allow for multiple specifications in one call.

Multiple parameter example, ‘_2’ is used to make the second parameter unique:

@attachFile:add="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8" @attachFile_2:add="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8"

The WCL also has an alias mechanism built in, that allows to map different external names for attributes to the internal representation. Currently the names of the AttributeCustomization described here are built in. This allows, for example, to use FOUND_IN=”Sprint 2 Development” instead of foundIn=”Sprint 2 Development”. You can add your own aliases if needed.

Values

The s are specified by a string. Parameter values are usually the display value of elements (enumerations) or composed of display values of the path to this item (category, iterations, process areas). For example setting an enumeration attribute would use the display name “High”, instead of the literal ID. This makes it easier to use. In some cases e.g. for links, subscriber lists and other user lists, it is necessary to specify the ID of the element instead of the display name.

Value examples

• For enumeration based attributes use the display value for the enumeration literal:

  internalPriority=High

• For HTML and string based attributes use a string. HTML types like summary, description, comment and HTML support the syntax below:

  description=”Plain text

  bold text

  italic text

  External RSJazz Link

  User link to @ralph

  Work Item link to Defect 3

  “

• For Wiki and multi line text attributes use

  or \n for line breaks and check the syntax in the wiki editor. The full description for the Wiki Syntax can be found here. Example for a Wiki entry:

  custom.wiki=”

  =Heading1Plain text\n==Heading 2\n\nNormal Text **bold text**

  **bold text**

  //Italics//”

• For work item type, owner and some other attributes use the object ID:

  workItemType=task

  owner=tanuj

• Use the display name for simple attributes or the path composed out of the display names for hierarchical attributes;

  category=JKE/BRN

  foundIn=”Sprint 2 Development”

  target=”Main Development/Release 1.0/Sprint 3″

  custom.process.area=”JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering”

• Dates have to be specified in the Java SimpleDateFormat notation:

  dueDate=”2015/02/01 12:30:00 GMT+01:00″

• Duration values are specified in milliseconds:

  duration=1800000 correctedEstimate=3600000 timeSpent=60000Since version 3.2 the value can also be specified in hours and minutes

  timeSpent=“3 hours 3 minutes” or timeSpent=“3 hours” or timeSpent=“3 minutes”

Lists

Work item attribute values of List with a specified item type such as userList. Use the separator  ‘,‘ like in “value1,value2,…,valueN” to separate values.

Example user list: custom.user.list:add=”deb,al,bob,tanuj”

Work item attributes with an general attribute value type such as Item or itemList require encoding to locate the items. The format is: custom.item.list=value

Where value has the form: {,}

Each having the form : with no spaces allowed in the value list.

Available values for and examples for Item and itemList attribute values:

• ProjectArea – specified by its name.

  Example: “ProjectArea:JKE Banking (Change Management)”

• TeamArea – specified by its name path from the project area to the team area.

  Example: “TeamArea:JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering”

• ProcessArea – specified by the name path from the project area to the process area.

  Example: “ProcessArea:JKE Banking (Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters”

• Category – specified by the category path.

  Example: “Category:JKE/BRM”

• User – specified by the users user id.

  Example: “User:tanuj”

• Iteration – specified by the iterations name path (including the development line name).

  Example: “Iteration:Main Development/Release 1.0/Sprint 3”

• WorkItem – specified by the work items id.

  Example: “WorkItem:20”

• SCMComponent – specified by the Jazz SCM components display name.

  Example: “SCMComponent:Build”

Modes

Modes allow different types of changes to attributes such as add values, append text or remove and set other data. The mode is specified using this syntax:

[:]=

Supported values for are default (no mode specified), add, set and remove.

If no mode is specified, the default mode for the parameter is used.

• Example for default mode: summary=”This is a summary.”.
• Example for add mode: summary:add=” Add this to the summary.”.
• Example for set mode: summary:set=”Overwite the existing summary with this text.”.
• Example for remove mode: custom.enumeration.list:remove=$,Unassigned.

Which modes are supported and their behavior depends on the attributes type.

• Single value attributes typically support default and set mode, but not add and remove mode.
  • Default mode for single value attributes is set the value.
• Multiple value attributes, such as lists and links, typically support default, add, set and remove mode.
  • Default mode for multiple value attributes is add, which adds the value(s).
  • Set mode for multiple value attributes removes the old values and then adds the new value(s).
  • Remove mode for multiple value attributes removes the specified values that can be found.
• String values such as HTML, Summary, Wiki type attributes support default (same behavior as set mode), set and add mode.

The Print Type Attributes Command to get the Attribute ID’s and Types

To set work item attributes, WCL needs the ID of the attribute. You can look up the ID of an attribute in the process configuration. The command printtypeattributes prints the attribute ID’s for the built-in and for the custom attributes of a work item type in a project area. The command requires, in addition to the repository URL, the user and password, at least the project area and the work item type to look up. Syntax and required parameters:

wcl -printtypeattributes repository=RepositoryURI user=userID password=password  projectArea=ProjectAreaName workItemType=WorkItemTypeID {parameter[:mode]=value}

Example

wcl -printtypeattributes repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)" workItemType=task

Please note, for the built in attributes this returns an internal ID that might not show up if you look into the process configuration. You can use the ID’s you find there too, the API should translate them correctly.

The Create Command

The command create can be used to create a new work item and set its attributes.

The command requires, in addition to the repository URL, the user and password, at least the project area and the work item type to create. Please note, if the process specifies additional required attributes, these need to be provided as well, otherwise the creation and save operation will fail. Syntax and required parameters:

wcl -create repository=RepositoryURI user=userID password=password  projectArea=ProjectAreaName workItemType=WorkItemTypeID {parameter[:mode]=value}

Here an example for creating a work item.

wcl -create /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)" workItemType=task summary="New Item" category=JKE owner=ralph

The command will report back the ID of the newly created work item if the operation was successful.

The Update Command

The command update can be used to update a work items attributes.

The command requires, in addition to the repository URL, the user and password, at least the ID of the work item to update. Syntax and required parameters:

wcl -update repository=RepositoryURI user=userID password=password  id=workItemID {parameter[:mode]=value}

Please note, if the process specifies additional required attributes, these need to be provided as well, otherwise the save operation will fail. This can be relevant if the state of a work item is changed.

Here is an example where a work item gets heavily updated:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 SUMMARY="New summary" FOUND_IN="Sprint 2 Development" owner=ralph target="Main Development/Release 1.0/Sprint 3" internalSeverity=Major foundIn="Sprint 2 Development" internalPriority=High attachFile="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8" internalApprovals="approval:Please Approve:ralph,deb" internalSubscriptions=al,ralph,deb internalState="In Progress" internalTags="test1,test2" custom.duration=1800000 custom.boolean=true custom.contributor=al custom.contributor.list=al,deb,tanuj custom.decimal=1500200 custom.integer=234 custom.long=567 custom.tag=tag1,tag2 custom.timestamp="2014/12/31 12:30:00 GMT+01:00" custom.wiki="My Wiki" custom.projectarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)" custom.project.area="JKE Banking (Change Management)" custom.teamarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters,JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.team.area="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.process.area="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.processarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters,JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.workitem=3 custom.workitem.list=9,20,7

The command will report back the ID of the updated work item if the operation was successful.

Special Attributes and not  Attribute Based Work Item Modifications

Some attribute types need special treatment or require more complex values to be specified. Some have other limitations and considerations. These are explained below.

For Item List attributes the items need to be provided as a list of items with the separator “,”. As an example a work item attribute of type TeamAreaList would be set like this:

custom.teamarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters,JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering"

Please note, that this implies that the separator ‘,’ can not be part of any of the display names of the elements.

Special Properties Handling

Some special properties are protected from changing.

• Work Item ID: can not be changed
• Project Area: parameter “projectArea” can only be specified when creating the work item. It can not be set to a different value later.

There might be other limitations imposed by the process e.g. against changing the creator of a work item.

Comments

The parameter “internalComments” can be used to add a comment. This pseudo attribute only supports the default and add mode. Removing comments is not supported in the WCL. Comments support the HTML syntax mentioned above allowing to create web links, user and work item links. Example:

internalComments=””Plain Text

Bold Text

Italic Text

External RSJazz Link

@ralph

Defect 3

”

User, User Lists

For attributes that require users or user lists the value of the property needs to specify the user or the list of users with the ID. Examples:

internalSubscriptions=al,ralph,deb custom.contributor.list=al,deb,tanuj

Subscriptions

The parameter internalSubscriptions can be used to subscribe a list of users to a work item using their user ID’s. The syntax is:

internalSubscriptions[:mode]={,}

This attribute supports the modes default (same as) add, set and remove mode.

• Example set specific users (removing all others):

  internalSubscriptions:set=al,tammy

• Example add users:

  internalSubscriptions:add=deb,tanuj,bob

• Example remove users:

  internalSubscriptions:remove=sally,bob

Example:

wcl -update repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalSubscriptions:add=al,ralph,deb

Tags

The parameter internalTags can be used to add a list of tags. This attribute supports the modes default (same as) add, set and remove. The syntax is:

internalTags[:] ={,}

Example to set the tag list of the work item to two tags test1 and test2, removing all other tags:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalTags:set="test1,test2" custom.tags="MyTag"

Approvals

The parameter internalApprovals can be used to add approvals and approvers. Approvals only support the modes default (same as) add, set and remove. Set and remove only affects approvals of the same approval type. For example, mode set for approval type review will only remove existing reviews. The syntax is:

internalApprovals[][:mode]=”:{: {,userIDn}}”

The name of the approval to be created is required. The Approver ID list is optional and it is possible to add one or more approver userID’s. Example without approvers

internalApprovals:add=”verification:Please Verify”

The section can be left out if only one approval is specified. If multiple approvals are specified, it needs to be a unique string. In the example below “_1” and “_2” make the parameters uniquely distinguishable:

internalApprovals_1:add="approval:Please approve:ralph,deb" internalApprovals_2:add="verification:Please verify:tanuj"

Available values for are

• approval – to create an approval record
• review – to create a review record
• verification – to create a verification record

Examples:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="approval:Please approve:ralph,deb"
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="review:Please review:deb"
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="verification:Please verify:tanuj"
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="verification:We need a verification"

The implementation of the modes set and remove is as follows. Removal of approvals by either set or remove mode must be explicitly enabled using the switch enableDeleteApprovals, otherwise the command will fail if one of these modes is used with a internalApproval parameter.

The mode set removes all existing approvals of the specified and then adds a new approval of this type as specified.

The mode remove searches for all approvals of the specified and deletes those found with a matching the Approval Name.

Workflow and State Change

The WCL allows to set the state of the work item in different ways. Please note, the state is reached after the save operation, if it can be set.

A pseudo parameter @workflowAction can be used to set a workflow action to change the work item state when saving. This attribute supports only the modes default and set.

When using this pseudo parameter WCL looks up the current state of the work item, tries to find a workflow action with the given display name. If one exists, it  sets the save operation to trigger this action when the work item gets saved.

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=115 @workflowAction="Reopen"

Another example: @workflowAction=”Stop working” . Please note, the workflow change is governed by the RTC process engine. If RTC prevents the state change, the operation will fail on save. It is impossible to detect this prior to the save.

The parameter internalState representing the attribute to read the state can be used to set the state. The parameter only implements the modes default and set, which act equal. The syntax is:

internalState=[:]StateName

Where is the value forceState.

Without the forceFlag provided WCL acts similar to using the pseudo parameter @workflowAction. It looks up the current state, and checks if any workflow action from the current state exists, that leads to the specified target state. If there is one, it sets the workflow action to be performed during the save operation. If there is no workflow action the state change is not performed.

Example with a target state:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalState="In Progress"

If the flag forceState: is added before the target state, WCL uses a deprecated API to forcefully set the state. Please note, that this does not trigger a workflow action and does also not trigger operational behavior. It should be used with caution. If the target state exists in the workflow of the work item type, the state is set, regardless if it is reachable directly or using multiple workflow actions or even if it is not reachable by the workflow at all.

Example with a target state forcefully set:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalState="forceState:New"

State Resolution

The resolution of a work item can be set using the attribute internalResulution. The parameter only implements the modes default and set, which act equal. The parameter value provided is the display value of the resolution.

Example:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalResolution=Invalid

 Attachments

The WCL provides a capability to manipulate work item attachments. The pseudo parameter @attachFile can be used to upload and remove attachments. This attribute supports the modes default (same as) add, set and remove. The syntax format is:

@attachFile[]=”SomeFilePath:Some Description::”

Where:

has one of the following values:

• text/plain
• application/unknown
• application/xml

has one of the following values:

• UTF-8
• UTF-16LE
• UTF-16BE
• us-ascii.

As above, must be unique for multiple attachments in one command. If only one attachment is uploaded, the can be left empty.

The file must be accessible and in the correct encoding for the operation to perform correctly.

As above for approvals the mode set is implemented to remove all attachments first and then add the new attachment. The mode remove is implemented to search for an attachment with the same file path and description and remove it if it is available.

Some examples:

-update /ignoreErrors  repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=150 @attachFile="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8" @attachFile_2:add="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8"
-update /ignoreErrors /enableDeleteAttachment repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=150 @attachFile:remove="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8"
-update /ignoreErrors /enableDeleteAttachment repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=150 @attachFile:set="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8"

Duration Types

In duration types provide the value in milliseconds. For example

custom.duration=1800000

Timestamps

Timestamps need to be provided as string in the SimpleDateFormat using the format pattern “yyyy/MM/dd hh:mm:ss z”. For example:

custom.timestamp="2014/12/31 12:30:00 GMT+01:00"

Links

The pseudo parameter @link_ can be used to link the current work item to other objects. The syntax is

@link_={|}

Where specifies the type of link to be created, for example reportAgainstBuild and the values on the right side specifies one target object or a list of target objects to be linked to the current work item using the link type. The separator used here is the pipe symbol ‘|‘. The reason is, that the links can be URI’s and the naming conventions are problematic. It is hard to find a character that is likely not to appear in that string. Not everyone sticks to the specification and the pipe symbol seemed to be appropriate.

The parameter supports the modes default (same as) add, set and remove.  Similar to other implementations above the mode set removes all links of the specified before creating the new links. The mode remove tries to find an existing link of the with the same target and removes this link, if it exists.

There are different ways the links get created, dependent on what link type and what target elements are specified.

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 @link_parent=1 @link_blocks=2|3 @link_reportAgainstBuild=P20141208-1713|@_IjluoH-oEeSHhcw_WFU6CQ|P20141208-1713
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=150 @link_tracks_workitem="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm/resource/itemName/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/80|4|5" @link_affected_by_defect=123 @link_affects_plan_item=20|30 @link_related_change_management=4|7
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=150 @link_related_artifact="https://rsjazz.wordpress.com/"  @link_affects_requirement="https://clm.example.com:9443/rm/resources/_6c96bedb0e9a490494273eefc6e1f7c5" @link_tested_by_test_case="https://clm.example.com:9443/qm/oslc_qm/contexts/_6u2zcH-nEeSJhuhJc8_drg/resources/com.ibm.rqm.planning.VersionedTestCase/_N6HHYX-oEeSJhuhJc8_drg"

Work Item Links – links between this work item and another work item within the same repository

The following are supported from the current work item to a target work item. These links are local to the repository this work item belongs to. This means the value list is a list of work item numbers separated by pipe ‘|’ symbols.

• copied
• copied_from
• successor
• blocks
• resolves
• mention
• predecessor
• parent
• duplicate_of
• duplicate
• related
• depends_on
• child
• resolved_by

Please note, that if you try to create a link that can not be supported on the target end, save errors will show up. As an example if a target is set to be the child of this work item and that work item has already some other work item set as parent, the save will fail.

Format example:

@link_related=123|80

CLM Work Item Links – CLM links between this work item and another work item within the same or across repository boundaries

The following are supported from the current work item to a target work item. These links can be local to the repository this work item belongs to, or to work items in another repository. The parameter value is a list of one or more work items specified by their ID (if they are in the same repository) or by their Item URI separated by pipe ‘|’ symbols. To understand the URI format, look at an existing link in the RTC web UI and inspect the link target. Wrong target formats can lead to corrupt data.

• affects_plan_item
• tracks_workitem
• related_change_management
• affected_by_defect

Format example:

@link_tracks_workitem="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm/resource/itemName/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/80|120|150"

CLM URI Links – CLM links between this work item and another item, described by a valid URI, in a different application or repository.

The following are supported from the current work item to a target item such as a requirement, test case or test result. These links are across repositories and applications. The parameter value is a list of one or more items, that support this link type, specified by their Item URI separated by pipe ‘|’ symbols. To understand the URI format, look at an existing link in the RTC web UI and inspect the link target. Wrong target formats can lead to corrupt data.

• related_test_plan
• affects_requirement
• tested_by_test_case
• blocks_test_execution
• implements_requirement
• affects_execution_result
• related_artifact
• related_test_case
• elaborated_by
• tracks_requirement
• scm_tracks_scm_changes
• related_execution_record

Format example:

@link_affects_requirement=https://clm.example.com:9443/rm/resources/_848a30e315524069854f55e1d35a402d|https://clm.example.com:9443/rm/resources/_6c96bedb0e9a490494273eefc6e1f7c5

Please note that the link “Associate Work Item” between a change set and the work item can only be created by the SCM component. The link created here is the looser CLM link. Create the work item change set link using the SCM command line.

Build result Links – Links from a work item to a build result in the same repository.

The following are supported from the current work item to a build result. These links are within a repository. The parameter value is a list of one or more build results. The Build result can be specified by its Build Result Label or by the Build Result ID separated by pipe ‘|’ symbols. The parameter value is a list of one or more Buildresults specified by their ID or their label. The WCL distinguishes between build result ID and Build Label, add @ as prefix to the Build Result Label.

• reportAgainstBuild
• includedInBuild

Please note that the link includedBuild should only be created by the SCM system from the snapshot, it is only available for completeness.

Format example: @link_reportAgainstBuild=@_IjluoH-oEeSHhcw_WFU6CQ|P20141208-1713

RMI Modes

The WCL can be run as a local Java application. This is fine if only one work item needs to be modified. However, since each call requires the RTC API TeamPlatform to be started and the process takes around 6 seconds, this does not scale for a lot of calls, it is possible to run the work item command line in a RMI server mode on the same or a different machine. This server waits for incoming requests and only needs to initialize the API once.

Called from another RMI client process, the server can process requests very fast and return the result. This can be achieved with two switches to set up the server and to delegate the call to the server.

The syntax for the switches is

/[=]

Where is one of the following values.

• rmiServer
• rmiClient

By default the RMI Name used to connect to the RMI server is “//localhost/RemoteWorkitemCommandLineServer” using a default port of 1099 for the RMI registry.

It is possible to define a different name and port by providing a value. The example below starts WCL as RMI server with name “//clm.example.com/WorkItemCommandLine” with a RMI registry listening to port 1199:

wcl /rmiServer=//clm.example.com:1199/WorkItemCommandLine

By providing the same naming in the rmiClient switch for the requested command, the connection can be established.

wcl -create /rmiClient=//clm.example.com:1199/WorkItemCommandLine /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)" workItemType=task summary="New Item" category=JKE owner=ralph target="Main Development/Release 1.0/Sprint 3" internalSeverity=Major foundIn="Sprint 2 Development" internalPriority=High creator=myadmin

If the WCL is started as RMI server, the process will not terminate, but RMI will listen to requests and delegate them to that process. It is not necessary to provide a command or any other input values, when starting the WCL in RMI server mode as they will be ignored. RMI will make the process available and call it to service commands requested by other client instances that are started with the additional switch /rmiClient added to the command that is supposed to be performed.

Please note, that the server and the client require a policy file for the security manager.  A policy file rmi_no.policy is shipped with the download. The policy file opens up everything.

So please rename and modify the file to your requirements

To enable security Java requires to call the class with the additional vm argument -Djava.security.policy=rmi_no.policy where the policy file name must exist and be readable on the server and on the client side.

Predefined Attribute ID Aliases

Aliases for attribute ID’s have been coded into the application. You can add your own aliases in the mapping table.

Available mappings:

RESOLUTION_DATE: resolutionDate

FOUND_IN: foundIn

PRIORITY: internalPriority

RESOLVER: resolver

SUMMARY: summary

ESTIMATE: duration

MODIFIED: modified

FILED_AGAINST: category

CREATOR: creator

RESOLUTION: internalResolution

MODIFIED_BY: modifiedBy

PLANNED_FOR: target

CREATION_DATE: creationDate

STATE: internalState

PROJECT_AREA: projectArea

OWNER: owner

TAGS: internalTags

DUE_DATE: dueDate

TYPE: workItemType

ID: id

TIME_SPENT: timeSpent

DESCRIPTION: description

SEVERITY: internalSeverity

CORRECTED_ESTIMATE: correctedEstimate

Summary

This WorkItem Command Line should allow for most of the automation needs when creating work items. In addition it is a nice resource for the RTC work Item API.

In later posts I will explain the code for users that are interested in adding their own implementation.

As always, I hope the post is an inspiration and helps someone out there to save some time. If you are just starting to explore extending RTC, please have a look at the hints in the other posts in this blog on how to get started.

A RTC WorkItem Command Line V1.0 – Deprecated

Please refer to the new Version of the RTC WorkItem Command Line. The code has been enhanced and received a lot of testing and will be the basis for future efforts.

Version 1.0 is Deprecated

Please refer to the new Version of the RTC WorkItem Command Line. The code has been enhanced and received a lot of testing and will be the basis for future efforts.

I have seen many requests to be able to create and update work items from a command line in the forum. There are enhancement requests and a story for it in the Rational Team Concert development repository. I had a lot of the required code already available and thought I should provide a solution if possible.

This post provides a simple Work Item Command Line Client and explains the usage. It comes with code, so you can also enhance it if you need more features.

Related posts

• Installing and using the WorkItemCommandLine – this post

WorkItemCommandLine Summary

The WorkItemCommandLine – in short WCL – works on Windows and Unix clients. It requires a JDK and the Plain Java Client Libraries to be installed.

It currently allows to

• Create work items
• Update work items
• Show the attributes ID’s available for a work item type in a project area

The WCL allows to set and update almost all available attribute types.

• String based attributes
• Number based attributes
• Enumeration and Enumeration List based attributes
• Tag based attributes
• ……

This works for built in attributes as well as for custom attributes.

The only attribute types currently not supported are Item and ItemList, where the type of the item is not specified or where the type is an SCM object. This might get implemented in the future. The problem is that the syntax needs to be able to specify what Item Type to look for in order to implement this, and to include the SCM component for searching.

Please note, for List attribute types it is currently only possible to set the list, unless described otherwise in the help. I am looking into a common parameter value encoding that can help more flexibility with being able to add and remove items as well.

In addition to these attribute types various not attribute based work item values can be modified:

• Subscription
• Comments
• Approvals
• Links to work items
• Links from build results
• Attachments can be uploaded
• Trigger a workflow action

This should be sufficient for most of the automation needs, especially during builds.

License

The post contains published code, so our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license. I found a section relevant to source code at the and of the license.

Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee.

On the other hand, you have the code and are able to add your own code to it. It would be nice to know what you did and how, if you do so.

Just Starting With Extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

Download

You can download the tool here:

• The packaged, executable application
  
• The Eclipse project with source code and all other files
  

Setup

Download the packaged executable application. The file is compressed and will be named like wcl-Vx-YYYYMMDD.zip. The x represents the version number and is followed by the date it was created.

If you have installed an RTC API development environment following the RTC Extensions workshop and this post, you have all else that is needed and can use  the installs folder of your extension development install, for example C:\RTC401Dev\installs.

Extract the file e.g. using 7Zip to a folder, for example C:\RTCWCL (or C:\RTC401Dev\installs).

The destination folder should now contain a folder wcl.

If you don’t have an extension development environment set up, download and install the Plain Java Client Libraries for your version of RTC. Open the All Downloads tab of the RTC version you are interested in. For example https://jazz.net/downloads/rational-team-concert/releases/4.0.1?p=allDownloads and scroll down to the Plain .zip Files section.

Download the Plain Java Client Libraries file.

Use 7Zip and unzip the Plain Java client Libraries download file (for example named RTC-Client-plainJavaLib-4.0.1.zip). Use 7Zips Extract Files command and provide the extraction Path C:\RTCWCL\PlainJavaAPI .

If you don’t have an extension development environment set up, download and install a Java JDK. If you have the Rational Team Concert client installed a compatible JDK is available in the install location e.g. TeamConcert\jazz\client\eclipse\jdk. The easiest way is to download the zip version of the Rational Team concert Client and extracting it to C:\RTCWCL\TeamConcert.

The folder should now look similar to this image.

Adjusting the Scripts to the Environment

If you downloaded a different JDK or have the RTC Eclipse client installed in a different location, follow the next steps to adjust the WCL to the different paths.

Open the folder created when extracting the WCL for example C:\RTCWCL\wcl. The folder contains the script files

• wcl.bat – for Windows clients
• wcl.sh – for client with Unix/*ux operating systems such as Linux

Open the file relevant for your operating system. It should look similar to this:

The script assumes an install structure where the JDK and the Plain Java Client Libraries are installed like in the image before. If your setup uses different paths, adjust then according to your setup.

On Unix operating systems chmod the shell script so that it is executable.

You should now be able to run the WorkItemCommandLine.

Test the Environment

Open a shell or cmd window. change the directory to where you extracted WCL for example C:\RTCWCL\wcl. Type wcl and run the WorkItemCommandLine. The command should be executed and print help content like below.

If this does not happen, make sure the paths are set correctly and the JDK is compatible.

The Syntax of WCL

WCL uses the following syntax:

wcl -<command> [/<flag>] [<parameter>=<value>]

Where <command> can be

• create
• update
• printtypeattributes

The commands have their own requirements for base parameters such as repository URL, users, password and the like.

The flag

• ignoreErrors allows to successfully perform the create and update command if minor errors happen. For example if an optional attribute or its value was not found. If the flag is not provided any error will cause the operation to fail.

The parameter sections <parameter>=<value> must not have spaces in the <parameter> or in the <value> or before or after the =. You can enclose the value of <parameter>, <value> or the whole term in quotation marks. For example projectArea=”JKE Banking (Change Management)”.

The WorkItemCommandline also defines various pseudo attribute names e.g. to upload files as attachment.

Each <parameter> can only be used once in the command line. In some cases like attachment uploads a special section needs to be added in the parameter to allow for multiple specifications.

The WorkItemCommandline also has an alias mechanism built in, that allows to map different external names for attributes to the internal representation. Currently the names of the AttributeCustomization described here are built in. This allows, for example, to use FOUND_IN=”Sprint 2 Development” instead of foundIn=”Sprint 2 Development”. You can add your own aliases if needed.

Parameter values <value> are usually the display value of elements. For example setting an enumeration attribute would use “High” instead of the literal ID. This makes it easier to use.

In some cases e.g. for links, subscriber lists and other user lists, it is necessary to specify the ID of the element instead of the display name.

The help given by the tool should be enough to figure out how to use it. However, here some more details and examples.

The Command to get the Attribute ID’s and Types

To set work item attributes, wcl needs the ID of the attribute. You can look up the ID of an attribute in the process configuration. The command printtypeattributes prints the attribute ID’s for the built-in and for the custom attributes of a work item type in a project area.

wcl -printtypeattributes repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)" workItemType=task

Please note, for the built in attributes this returns an internal ID that might not show up if you look into the process configuration. You can use the ID’s you find there too, the API should translate them correctly.

The Create Command

The command create can be used to create a new work item and set its attributes.

The command requires, in addition to the repository URL, the user and password, at least the project area and the work item type to create. Please note, if the process specifies additional required attributes, these need to be provided as well, otherwise the creation and save operation will fail.

Here an example for creating a work item.

wcl -create /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph projectArea="JKE Banking (Change Management)" workItemType=task summary="New Item" category=JKE owner=ralph

The Update Command

The command update can be used to update a work items attributes.

The command requires, in addition to the repository URL, the user and password, at least the ID of the work item to update. Please note, if the process specifies additional required attributes, these need to be provided as well, otherwise the save operation will fail. This can be relevant if the state of a work item is changed.

Here is an example where a work item gets heavily updated:

-update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 SUMMARY="New summary" FOUND_IN="Sprint 2 Development" owner=ralph target="Main Development/Release 1.0/Sprint 3" internalSeverity=Major foundIn="Sprint 2 Development" internalPriority=High attachFile="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8" internalApprovals="approval:Please Approve:ralph,deb" internalSubscriptions=al,ralph,deb internalState="In Progress" internalTags="test1,test2" custom.duration=1800000 custom.boolean=true custom.contributor=al custom.contributor.list=al,deb,tanuj custom.decimal=1500200 custom.integer=234 custom.long=567 custom.tag=tag1,tag2 custom.timestamp="2014/12/31 12:30:00 GMT+01:00" custom.wiki="My Wiki" custom.projectarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)" custom.project.area="JKE Banking (Change Management)" custom.teamarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters,JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.team.area="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.process.area="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.processarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters,JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering" custom.workitem=3 custom.workitem.list=9,20,7

Special Attributes and not  Attribute Based Workitem Modifications

Some attribute types need special treatment or require more complex values to be specified. Some have other limitations and considerations. These are explained below.

For Item List attributes the items need to be provided as a list of items with the separator “,”. As an example a work item attribute of type TeamAreaList would be set like this:

custom.teamarea.list="JKE Banking (Change Management)/Business Recovery Matters,JKE Banking (Change Management)/Release Engineering"

Please note, that this implies that the separator can not be part of any of the display names of the elements.

Special Properties Handling

Some special properties are protected from changing.

• Work Item ID: can not be changed
• Project Area: can not be changed – use the category

There might be other limitations imposed by the process e.g. against changing the creator of a work item.

User, User Lists, Subscribers

For attributes that require users or user lists the value of the property needs to specify the user or the list of users with the ID. Examples:

internalSubscriptions=al,ralph,deb custom.contributor.list=al,deb,tanuj

Links

To create links to other elements a special pseudo attribute/parameter link is used. The syntax is:

link_<linktype>=<value>

The supported <linktype> values are printed in the help. The value is a list of item ID’s to link to. The list of one or more elements can either be a list of one or more work item ID’s or the label or ID, in case of a build result. Examples:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 link_parent=1 link_blocks=2,3 link_reportAgainstBuild=P20141208-1713

 Workflow, States and Resulutions

The WorkItemCommandline allows to set the state of the work item in different ways. Please note, the state is reached after the save operation, if it can be set.

You can specify a workflow action by using the pseudo parameter workflowAction. In this case wcl looks up the current state of the work item, tries to find a workflow action with the given name and sets the save operation to trigger this action when the work item gets saved. An example:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=115 workflowAction="Reopen"

In addition the attribute internalState can be used to set the state.

Syntax is:

internalState=[<forceFlag>:]StateName

In this case wcl looks up the target state and tries to reach the state, using any available direct workflow action. If there is no workflow action the state change is not performed. If the flag forceState: is added before the target state, wcl uses a dprecated API to forcefully set the state. Please note, that this does not trigger a workflow action and does also not trigger operational behavior. It should be used with caution.

Example with a target state:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalState="In Progress"

Example with a target state forcefully set:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalState="forceState:New"

The resolution can be set using the attribute internalResulution. Example:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 workItemType=defect internalResolution=Invalid

Approvals

The WorkItemCommandline allows to create approvals, reviews and verifications. The syntax is

internalApprovals=”<approval_type>:<Approval Name String>:{<userID1>{,<userID>}}

Where <approval_type> is one of

• approval
• review
• verification

The name of the approval <Approval Name String> is required and it is possible to add one or more approver userID’s

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="approval:Please approve:ralph,deb"
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="review:Please review:deb"
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="verification:Please verify:tanuj"
wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111  internalApprovals="verification:We need a verification"

Attachments

The WorkItemCommandline allows to upload attachments to work items. The syntax is

attachFileIDString{<uniqueID>}=”<pathToFile>:<description>:<contentTypeID>:<encodingID>”

Where the <uniqueID> is optional, but must be unique if multiple attachment uploads are specified, the <pathToFile> needs to exist  and be accessible, the description is some string.

The values for <contentTypeID> and <encodingID> need to match the file.

Supported values for <contentTypeID> are:

• text/plain
• application/unknown
• application/xml

Supported values for <encodingID> are:

• UTF-8
• UTF-16LE
• UTF-16BE
• us-ascii

Example:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 attachFile="./Test.txt:Some Description:text/plain:UTF-8" attachFile_1="./LintResult.txt:Lint result:text/plain:UTF-8"

Subscriptions

WCL allows to add subscribers to work items. The syntax is:

internalSubscriptions=<userID1>{,<userID>}

To remove subscribers use the pseudo attribute unsubscribe. The syntax is the same as when subscribing:

unsubscribe=<userID1>{,<userID>}

Example:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph internalSubscriptions=al,ralph,deb unsubscribe=myadmin

Tags

WCL allows to set tags in the built in tag attribute as well as for custom attributes of the type tag. The syntax is:

<parameter>=<Tag>{,<Tag>}

Example:

wcl -update /ignoreErrors repository="https://clm.example.com:9443/ccm" user=ralph password=ralph id=111 internalTags="test1,test2" custom.tags="MyTag"

Duration Types

In duration types provide the value in milliseconds. For example

custom.duration=1800000

Timestamps

Timestamps need to be provided as string in the SimpleDateFormat using the format pattern “yyyy/MM/dd hh:mm:ss z”. For example:

custom.timestamp="2014/12/31 12:30:00 GMT+01:00"

Summary

This WorkItemCommandLine should allow for most of the automation needs when creating work items. In addition it is a nice resource for the RTC work Item API. If my schedule allows, I will enhance it to support the missing types and potentially some export and import options.

In later posts I will explain the code for users that are interested in adding their own implementation.

As always, I hope the post is an inspiration and helps someone out there to save some time. If you are just starting to explore extending RTC, please have a look at the hints in the other posts in this blog on how to get started.

Creating CLM Links With Back Link Between Work Items

CLM Links, especially the back links can be tricky. I ran into some issues with CLM links when working with a partner recently. I wanted to share this learning and protect others from bad surprises.

*Update* The post A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 contains downloadable code that performs most of the activities required for reading and modifying work items, including the creation of all kinds of links. The interesting code can be found in the com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.helper package in the class WorkItemHelper. All techniques described below are used there. You can familiarize yourself with the concepts in this post and then look into that project for how it is used.

I thought I had CLM links under control as posted in Following CALM Links using the Java Client or Server API and related posts. I had to realize that this was not entirely true and I am still baffled, why I did not realize this during testing.

The issue is, that back links are not automatically created when linking a work item to another work item with a CALM link. I have not looked into back links when linking to other CLM objects. This post will describe how CLM links with related back link between work items can be created. There are some limitations for versions prior to 4.0.6 that restrict when you can actually do this as described below.

License

As always, the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license, which basically means you can use it for internal usage, but not sell. Remember that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee. Enjoy!

Just Starting With Extending RTC?

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

To keep it simple this example is, as many others in this blog, based on the Jazz Team Wiki entry on Programmatic Work Item Creation and the Plain Java Client Library Snippets. The example in this blog shows RTC Client API.

Creating Back Links from a Newly Created Item – Version 4.0.6 and later

* Update * See example participant attached to Enhancement Request 288105 for how creating a link with back link to a newly created item works in the server API.

Creating Back Links – Limitations for Versions Prior to 4.0.6

There are currently limitations for versions prior to 4.0.6  on using the back link creation. The back link creation is done behind the scenes. It requires the work items to already exist. Trying to create the link with back links when creating a work item can lead into a deadlock situation, where the created work item is not yet saved and locked, so that the other operation will time out on the lock. This is, for example, the case in a work item save operation participant.

Enhancement Request 288105 was created to provide this capability and has been solved for 4.0.6.

I have tried to get around the deadlock in previous versions, by changing when what gets saved and when the link is created in which direction, however, to no avail.

Creating Back Links on Saving a Work Item

The RTC API provides additional parameters, that can be used to communicate information across save operations. This can be used in several ways. One example is to communicate between participants and other server extensions. This can, for example be used to detect that a save was initiated by a participant and to avoid to run the same participant being triggered by the subsequent save, to avoid recursion as described in RTC Update Parent Duration Estimation and Effort Participant.

This mechanism is also used to communicate the need to create a back link for CLM links. The API provides the constant IAdditionalSaveParameters.UPDATE_BACKLINKS in the interface com.ibm.team.workitem.common.internal.IAdditionalSaveParameters. Please be aware that this is an internal API with all that entails.

If you provide the additional parameter during a work item save operation, the back links are automatically created too.

You can add the additional parameter in several ways as the code below will show.

Creating Back Links – Client API Example

The example below shows client API code that can be used in Eclipse client extensions and in automation provided with the Plain Java Client Libraries.

The code below is based on the WorkItemOperation class that I usually use in client extensions to avoid having to deal with all the exception handling. The WorkItemOperation is a client API class, that can be extended with your own code and allows to create, modify, and save a work item. The code below adds a CLM (for examples Tracks) link between two existing work items.

The constructor passes the load profile to load the work item that gets modified by adding the outgoing link. It gets the endpoint for the link that is supposed to be created and the other work item passed and stores them in fields.

In the overwritten execute() method, the magic happens. First a URI for the work item is created. In this case I use an URI that is based on the ID of the work item. Another way to create URI’s is based on the work item UUID. I chose this version, because that is the version created when linking work items manually. The URI is used to create a location and to create a target endpoint from the passed endpoint descriptor and the Location’s Absolute URI.

The important step is to add the additional save parameter in the line

workingCopy.getAdditionalSaveParameters().add(IAdditionalSaveParameters.UPDATE_BACKLINKS);

This is only one valid way to do it. As you can see in the server code, you can also add it to the save statement if you are using other ways of saving. This should also work for the WokringCopyManager in the client API.

private static class LinkTrackingWorkItemOperation extends
		WorkItemOperation {

	private IWorkItem fOpposite; // The other work item o link to
	private IEndPointDescriptor fIEndPointDescriptor; // The endpoint to use

	public LinkTrackingWorkItemOperation(IEndPointDescriptor iEndPointDescriptor, IWorkItem opposite) {
		super("Linking Tracking Work Item", IWorkItem.FULL_PROFILE);
		fOpposite = opposite;
		fIEndPointDescriptor=iEndPointDescriptor;
	}

	@Override
	protected void execute(WorkItemWorkingCopy workingCopy,
			IProgressMonitor monitor) throws TeamRepositoryException {
		IWorkItemClient workItemClient = (IWorkItemClient) ((ITeamRepository)fOpposite.getOrigin())
				.getClientLibrary(IWorkItemClient.class);

		URI myURI = ItemURI.createWorkItemURI(workItemClient.getAuditableCommon(), fOpposite.getId());
		Location location = Location.location(myURI);
		IReference targetEndpoint = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE.createReferenceFromURI(location.toAbsoluteUri());
		workingCopy.getAdditionalSaveParameters().add(IAdditionalSaveParameters.UPDATE_BACKLINKS);
		workingCopy.getReferences().add(fIEndPointDescriptor,
				targetEndpoint);
	}
}

The operation is called using the code below, assuming the work items have been found already.

LinkTrackingWorkItemOperation operation = new LinkTrackingWorkItemOperation(
		ILinkTypeRegistry.INSTANCE.getLinkType(
				WorkItemLinkTypes.TRACKS_WORK_ITEM)
				.getTargetEndPointDescriptor(), opposite);
operation.run(linkdest, monitor);

Creating Back Links – Server API Example

The server API looks very similar, except it is not wrapped into an operation as shown above. Instead of adding the save Parameter to the workingCopy, it is added to the work item save.

	IWorkItemReferences targetReferences = fWorkItemServer
		.resolveWorkItemReferences(currentItem, monitor);

	IEndPointDescriptor tracksEndpoint = ILinkTypeRegistry.INSTANCE
						.getLinkType(WorkItemLinkTypes.TRACKS_WORK_ITEM).getTargetEndPointDescriptor();
	URI myURI = ItemURI.createWorkItemURI(fWorkItemCommon.getAuditableCommon(), currentItem.getId());
	Location location = Location.location(myURI);
	IReference target = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE.createReferenceFromURI(location.toAbsoluteUri());

	targetReferences.add(tracksEndpoint, target);
	Set additionalParams = new HashSet();
	additionalParams.add(IAdditionalSaveParameters.UPDATE_BACKLINKS);
	// Save the trigger work item with the links we created
	IStatus saveStatus = fWorkItemServer.saveWorkItem3(currentItem,
				currentReferences, null, additionalParams);

Please note, this only works if both work items already exist when the link is created.

Creating Link and Back Link to a New Item  –  Server API Example

See example participant attached to Enhancement Request 288105 for how back link creation works in the server API in case the back link is from a newly created work item.

Summary

This post explains how to create CLM links with back link. The code above is experimental. I have tested the client code. The server code is untested and copied together from different methods. There might be typos and other issues due to copying the code together from different places. I couldn’t test due to the deadlock mentioned above. But that the deadlock occurs hints the code would work.

As always, I hope the code is an inspiration and helps someone out there to save some time.

Resolve Parent If All Children Are Resolved Participant

This post is about a Participant that resolves the parent work item, if all children are resolved. It is the example I used to understand the server API for manipulating work item states. I would probably not use it on a production system, because I strongly believe that a human being should do a conscious decision in cases like that, but it is a nice example about the RTC Work Item Server API.

License and how to get started with the RTC API’S

As always, our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license, which basically means you can use it for internal usage, but not sell. Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee. Enjoy!

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

The example in this blog shows RTC Server and Common API.

Download

You can download the code here.

The download contains the (slightly enhanced) UpdateParentDuration Participant described in this post, the UpdateParentStateParticipant and the WorkFlowPathfinder from this post as Eclipse projects. In Eclipse use File>Import and select Existing Projects into Workspace. Select the downloaded archive file and do the import. This version of the WorkFlowPathFinder has the Plain Java Client Libraries dependency removed and is treated as real plug in, to provide its services to the other plug ins.

Please note, If you just get started with extending RTC, I would suggest to start reading this and the linked posts to get some guidance on how to set up your environment. Then read the article Extending Rational Team Concert 3.x and follow the Rational Team Concert 4.0 Extensions Workshop at least through the setup and Lab 1. This provides you with a development environment and with a lot of example code and information that is essential to get started. You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own extension working.

UpdateParentSateParticipant

The project com.ibm.js.team.workitem.extension.updateparent.participant contains the class UpdateParentState. This implements the Participant that

1. Checks if there was a state change
2. Checks if the new state is a closed state
3. Checks if there is a parent
4. If there is a parent, checks if all children are closed
5. Resolves the parent If all children are closed

The UpdateParentStateParticipant can use different strategies to do the state change. The code below shows some of the available options.

if (!resolveBF(parentHandle, monitor)) {
// if (!resolveDF(parentHandle, monitor)) {
// if (!resolveWithResolveActionID(parentHandle, monitor)) {
// if (!gotoStateBF(parentHandle,"4",true, monitor)) {

The methods resolveBF() and resolveDF() use the Breadth First and the Depth First strategy against the resolve action. The method gotoStateBF() uses the Breadth First strategy but uses a target state instead. The method resolveWithResolveActionID() only tries to apply the action ID. You can play around with the different strategies and pick the one you like best.

The resolve Action needs to be defined in the RTC work Item workflow as shown below, otherwise the state change can’t be done, because no path can be found.

The WorkflowPathFinder class in the download provides two other ways to find a target state, instead of a target action. The methods are called findPathToState_DF() and findPathToState_BF().

UpdateParentDurationParticipant

The UpdateParentDurationParticipant is slightly enhanced compared to the state in RTC Update Parent Duration Estimation and Effort Participant post. It checks if there are changes to the duration and estimate values before doing anything else.

The code also contains several methods to analyze the work item links on the server as described in The RTC WorkItem Server Link API post.

Summary

The code is experimental. I have tested it in a Jetty based test server using the Scrum template. It is by no means production ready and can be enhanced for various scenarios. However, as always, I hope the code is an inspiration and helps someone out there to save some time. If you are just starting to explore extending RTC, please have a look at the hints in the other posts in this blog on how to get started.

Following CALM Links using the Java Client or Server API

Going from just Rational Team Concert to a full Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management Solution introduces URI based link types. This post answers this forum question about how to follow URI based references to work items.

If you are just starting with extending Rational Team Concert, start reading this and the linked posts to get some guidance on how to set up your environment.

*Update* The post A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 contains downloadable code that performs most of the activities required for reading and modifying work items, including the creation of all kinds of links. The interesting code can be found in the com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.helper package in the class WorkItemHelper. All techniques described below are used there. With respect to links, the code shows which kinds of different location types are used.

I updated the post The RTC WorkItem Client Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements and added client API code to analyze the references for a work item, including URI based links.

The code can be reused in server extensions as well, except for the method analyzeReferenceTarget(). The post The RTC WorkItem Server Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements needed to be updated as well, with server specific code for analyzeReferenceTarget(). If you work on a server extension, get the client code from The RTC WorkItem Client Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements and replace analyzeReferenceTarget() with the code for the server from The RTC WorkItem Server Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements.

As always, license statements in the posts apply to the code and remember that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee. Enjoy!

The RTC WorkItem Server Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements

Yesterday, I blogged about the RTC Client Link API. I excluded the server API, mainly because I realized I was not able to access the references from a WorkItemWorkingCopy on the server. The server API is simply different. I missed looking into an example that I had created some years ago, where I had already solved the issue. So here is the “missing link”.

*Update* See the post Creating CLM Links With Back Link Between Work Items for some new information on CLM links between work items.

*Update* Creating the Links using the ILinkServiceLibrary does not trigger operational behavior.

*Update* I took a deeper look at what to do with URI references on the server.

*Update* Use the new method instead of ILinkServiceLibrary to create links that can be governed by operational behavior.

*Update* Please find some of the code in the download at the post Resolve Parent If All Children Are Resolved Participant.

• Update * This forum post shows the code that links a work item with a RTC SCM change set.

License and how to get started with the RTC API’S

As always, our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license, which basically means you can use it for internal usage, but not sell. Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee. Enjoy!

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

To keep it simple this example is, as many others in this blog, based on the Jazz Team Wiki entry on Programmatic Work Item Creation and the Plain Java Client Library Snippets. The example in this blog shows RTC Client and Common API.

Accessing References on the Server

I found two ways to access references for work items on the server. The post RTC Update Parent Duration Estimation and Effort Participant provides an example that shows how to use the information about existing and new references provided by the ISaveParameter operation. For example using this code:

IWorkItemReferences newRreferences = saveParameter.getNewReferences();

The code provides you with the references for the state of the work item. If you want to access the references for the old work item, or if you just have a work item (for instance a parent) and want the references for that, you have to take a different approach as presented below.

IWorkItemReferences oldReferences=null;
IAuditable oldState = saveParameter.getOldState();
if(oldState!=null){
	IAuditableCommon common = (IAuditableCommon)getService(IAuditableCommon.class);
	IWorkItem oldItem = (IWorkItem)common.resolveAuditable(oldState, IWorkItem.FULL_PROFILE, monitor);
	IWorkItemServer workItemServer = getService(IWorkItemServer.class);
	oldReferences = workItemServer.resolveWorkItemReferences(oldItem, monitor);
}

The code gets the IAuditable from the old state. If the old state is not null (there was a state), the code resolves the IAauditable to the IWorkItem. then it uses the IWorkItemServer service to get the references. Working with the references is identical to the client, except Creating a reference.

Handling CALM or URI References on the server

*Update* I took a deeper look at what to do with URI references.

The code below is the server API replacement for analyzeReferenceTarget() in The RTC WorkItem Client Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements. All other methods to analyze the references found in the post can be used on the server too. The difference on the server is that the client library used in analyzeReferenceTarget() in the post The RTC WorkItem Client Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements needs to be replaced by a service.

The code below tries to find the other end of an URI reference. Those references are used for CALM links such as “Tracks”. In case the other end is a work item it uses the location information to get the work item.

/**
* Further analyze an item referenced by an URI
* @param iReference
*/
public void analyzeReferenceTarget(IReference iReference) {
	URI uri = iReference.createURI();
	try {
		System.out.println(" Resolving URI: " + uri.toString());
		// get the location from the URI
		Location location = Location.location(uri);
		// resolve the item by location
		IAuditableCommon common = getService(IAuditableCommon.class);
		IAuditable referenced = common.resolveAuditableByLocation(
			location, ItemProfile.createFullProfile(
			location.getItemType()), null);
		// look for a referenced work item
		if (referenced instanceof IWorkItem) {
			IWorkItem referencedWI = (IWorkItem) referenced;
			System.out.println(" Resolved URI (resolve): "
				+ uri.toString() + " to: " + referencedWI.getId()
				+ " " + referencedWI.getState2().toString());
		}
	} catch (TeamRepositoryException e) {
	e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println(" Resolved URI: " + uri.toString());
}

Creating References on the Server

*Update* Creating the Links using the ILinkManager does not trigger operational behavior.Use creating IReferences instead and save them with IWorkItemServer.saveWorkItem3(). I also ran into a problem with CLM links such as Tracking work item links. I will post a solution as soon as I have one.

This was the hardest part really.

*UPDATE*

I had to write some code for a customer and I needed to create CLM links like Tracks. I used the code I had – the one published in the second next block. It did not work as expected. The issue was, the links where created, but I could not delete them anymore. I had to investigate, talked to one of our developers and we finally came up with the new code below.

/**
 * Link the trigger and the target work item
 * @param sourceWorkItem     the work item to link to
 * @param targetWorkItem     the work item to link to
 * @param monitor
 * @return
 */
private linkWorkItemsCLM(IWorkItem sourceWorkItem, IWorkItem targetWorkItem, IProgressMonitor monitor) {
	fWorkItemServer = getService(IWorkItemServer.class);
	// Get the references for the source work item, we need it to add new links
	IWorkItemReferences targetReferences = fWorkItemServer
				.resolveWorkItemReferences(resolvedTriggerItem, monitor);
	IEndPointDescriptor tracksEndpoint = ILinkTypeRegistry.INSTANCE
			.getLinkType(WorkItemLinkTypes.TRACKS_WORK_ITEM)
			.getTargetEndPointDescriptor();
	Location location = Location.itemLocation(targetWorkItem,
			this.getPublicRepositoryURL());
	IReference targetEndpoint = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE
			.createReferenceFromURI(location.toAbsoluteUri());
	// The target work item is new, no need to check for duplicates
	targetReferences.add(tracksEndpoint, targetEndpoint);

	// Save the sourceWorkItemwork item with the links we created
	IStatus saveStatus = fWorkItemServer.saveWorkItem3(sourceWorkItem,
			targetReferences, null, null);
}

The code above is able to successfully create CLM and other links from work items to other items, including work items. The code above is different from the code below I came up with first.

It uses the work item server to save the work item, instead of using the ILinkService to create and save the link. That way, operational behavior is called for the save operation and operational behavior can govern the creation of these links. The code below shows how to call the code.

// Load the new trigger work item so that we can modify it and don't get
// stale data
fWorkItemServer = getService(IWorkItemServer.class);
ItemProfile loadProfile = IWorkItem.SMALL_PROFILE
	.createExtension(Arrays.asList(new String[] { IWorkItem.TARGET_PROPERTY }));
IWorkItem sourceWorkItem= (IWorkItem) fWorkItemServer
	.getAuditableCommon()
	.resolveAuditable(workItem, loadProfile, monitor)
	.getWorkingCopy();
linkWorkItemsCLM(IWorkItem sourceWorkItem, IWorkItem targetWorkItem, IProgressMonitor monitor)

In the above code a Location was used to create the target endpoint. This location needs the public repository URI, otherwise the work item won’t be linked properly. The code above works across repositories, if you provide the right public repository URI for the target work item. In the code above the assumption is that both work items are in the same repository.

If you want to link work items with work item references like parent-child references in the same repository, you can use the code below. It avoids having to create the reference from an URI.

IEndPointDescriptor tracksEndpoint = ILinkTypeRegistry.INSTANCE
	.getLinkType(WorkItemLinkTypes.PARENT_WORK_ITEM)
	.getTargetEndPointDescriptor();
IReference targetEndpoint = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE
	.createReferenceToItem(targetWorkItem);

Note: Don’t use this method, as it avoids triggering operational behavior on save.

In the past, when I dug into the SDK and found bits and pieces. I dug around on Jazz.net and finally found this answer on Jazz.net which I shamelessly used to build my example code. However that was not enough and I had to refine it to get it working properly.

// Get the reference factory to create references
IReferenceFactory refFactory = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE;
IReference source = refFactory.createReferenceToItem(parent);
IReference target = refFactory.createReferenceToItem(blocked);
// get the link service to have access to the ILinkServiceLibrary
ILinkService linkService = getService(ILinkService.class);
// get the ILinkServiceLibary
ILinkServiceLibrary linkServiceLibrary = (ILinkServiceLibrary) linkService
	.getServiceLibrary(ILinkServiceLibrary.class);
// Create the link
ILink link = linkServiceLibrary.createLink(
WorkItemLinkTypes.BLOCKS_WORK_ITEM, source, target);
// Save the link
linkServiceLibrary.saveLink(link);

Note, please don’t forget to declare the services you use in server extensions as requiredService in the plugin XML as described here.

The RTC WorkItem Client Link API – Linking to Work Items and Other Elements

It is sometimes interesting to follow links in work items. I have seen and answered several related questions at the jazz.net Forum. This post is supposed to summarize what I have found about linking work items using the Plain Java Client Libraries so far. I will focus on the Client Library in this post because I realized that there are some important differences between the client and the server API with respect to accessing the work item’s references. I will try to address the differences on the server side in a later post. For now RTC Update Parent Duration Estimation and Effort Participant provides an example that shows how to follow work item to work item parent-child links on the server in an Advisor or in a Participant. In this case the information about existing and new references can be retrieved using the ISaveParameter.

*Update* The post A RTC WorkItem Command Line Version 2 contains downloadable code that performs most of the activities required for reading and modifying work items, including the creation of all kinds of links. The interesting code can be found in the com.ibm.js.team.workitem.commandline.helper package in the class WorkItemHelper. All techniques described below are used there. You can familiarize yourself with the concepts in this post and then look into that project for how it is used.

*Update* See the post Creating CLM Links With Back Link Between Work Items for some new information on CLM links betwen work items.

*Update* I figured the server side API and you can find the information in this post.

*Update* I took a deeper look at what to do with URI references.

*Update* See this link for code to get a work item handle from an URI

If you are just starting with extending Rational Team Concert, start reading this and the linked posts to get some guidance on how to set up your environment.

License and how to get started with the RTC API’S

As always, our lawyers reminded me to state that the code in this post is derived from examples from Jazz.net as well as the RTC SDK. The usage of code from that example source code is governed by this license. Therefore this code is governed by this license, which basically means you can use it for internal usage, but not sell. Please also remember, as stated in the disclaimer, that this code comes with the usual lack of promise or guarantee. Enjoy!

If you just get started with extending Rational Team Concert, or create API based automation, start with the post Learning To Fly: Getting Started with the RTC Java API’s and follow the linked resources.

You should be able to use the following code in this environment and get your own automation or extension working.

To keep it simple this example is, as many others in this blog, based on the Jazz Team Wiki entry on Programmatic Work Item Creation and the Plain Java Client Library Snippets. The example in this blog shows RTC Client and Common API.

Creating References Using WorkItemEndPoints

The following code shows the code used to create a reference to another work item. It is based on the WorkitemOperation code used in Uploading Attachments to Work Items. It can however be used also with any kind of WorkItemWorkingCopy saved with the WorkingCopyManager too.

The code shows the most basic way to create a reference in RTC using the client API.

/**
 * Inner class to do the modification
 *
 */
private static class WorkItemReferencesModification extends WorkItemOperation {
	private IWorkItemHandle fOpposite;

	public WorkItemReferencesModification(IWorkItemHandle opposite) {
		super("Modifying Work Item References",IWorkItem.FULL_PROFILE);
		fOpposite = opposite;
	}

	@Override
	protected void execute(WorkItemWorkingCopy workingCopy, IProgressMonitor monitor) throws TeamRepositoryException {
		// Create a new reference to the opposite item
		IItemReference reference = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE.createReferenceToItem(fOpposite);
		// Add the new reference using a specific work item end point
		workingCopy.getReferences().add(WorkItemEndPoints.BLOCKS_WORK_ITEM, reference);
	}
}

This is the easiest way to create a reference from a work item to another work item. The code creates a new reference to a work item handle. In the second step it uses endpoints predefined in com.ibm.team.workitem.common.model.WorkItemEndPoints to create the reference. The endpoints of a reference, sort of, define the type of the reference. A reference is some kind of link between two objects. From the perspective of the objects the relationship might be different. For example a work item could have a parent from its perspective. The parent from its perspective would have a child. The relationship between two work items is defined using the endpoints from com.ibm.team.workitem.common.model.WorkItemEndPoints. Both ends of the link have their own endpoint. By defining the opposite endpoint, the other endpoint is also determined.

When looking at the endpoints defined in WorkItemEndPoints it appears that the available endpoints are only for work item to work item links. Taking a closer look would reveal that even not all CLM work item to work item link types are available. In general there is no endpoint for any URL based relationship. You can only use this code if your link is based on these available WorkItemEndPoints.

Creating References Using WorkItemLinkTypes

If it is necessary to create other types of links for example to some URL this mechanism does not work. The code below shows an alternative approach that creates the endpoint using a more fundamental mechanism provided by using the com.ibm.team.links.common.registry.ILinkTypeRegistry.

/**
 * Inner class to do the modification
 *
 */
private static class WorkItemReferencesModification extends WorkItemOperation {

	private IWorkItemHandle fOpposite;

	public WorkItemReferencesModification(IWorkItemHandle opposite) {
		super("Modifying Work Item References",IWorkItem.FULL_PROFILE);
		fOpposite = opposite;
	}

	@Override
	protected void execute(WorkItemWorkingCopy workingCopy, IProgressMonitor monitor) throws TeamRepositoryException {
		// Create a new reference to the opposite item
		IItemReference reference = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE.createReferenceToItem(fOpposite);
		// Create a new end point
		IEndPointDescriptor endpoint = ILinkTypeRegistry.INSTANCE.getLinkType(WorkItemLinkTypes.BLOCKS_WORK_ITEM).getTargetEndPointDescriptor();
		// Add the new reference using a specific work item end point
		workingCopy.getReferences().add(endpoint, reference);
	}
}

The code uses the ILinkTypeRegistry and the WorkItemLinkTypes to create an endpoint and then creates the reference. This code is more flexible and allows more link types to be created. This includes links to elements using a URL such as OSLC links to elements in other OSLC providers. The code below would create a tested by test case link for a work item.

reference = IReferenceFactory.INSTANCE.createReferenceFromURI(new URI("https://clm.example.com:9447/qm/oslc_qm/contexts/_Lm2UIACBEeGZqMjM3RLKTw/resources/com.ibm.rqm.planning.VersionedTestCase/_dJzNgQCBEeGZqMjM3RLKTw"));
workingCopy.getReferences().add(ILinkTypeRegistry.INSTANCE
	.getLinkType(WorkItemLinkTypes.TESTED_BY_TEST_CASE).getTargetEndPointDescriptor(),reference);

Accessing References

I am aware of two ways to access the references of a work item using the Client Libraries. If you have a WorkItemWorkingCopy you can access the references using this code:

// get all references from the work item workingcopy
IWorkItemReferences references = workingCopy.getReferences();

It is easy to get a working copy from a work item that already is derived from a working copy using

WorkItemWorkingCopy workingCopy = (WorkItemWorkingCopy) workItem.getWorkingCopy()

Another way to access the references, if you have a plain work item, is using the IWorkItemCommon client library. Note, in this case the ITeamRepository is required which can be retrieved using the method .getOrigin(). The IWorkItemClient client library provides this method as well, in case it is already available.

IWorkItemCommon common= (IWorkItemCommon) ((ITeamRepository)workItem.getOrigin()).getClientLibrary(IWorkItemCommon.class);
IWorkItemReferences references = common.resolveWorkItemReferences(workItem, null);

Once we have an IWorkItemReferences object we can analyze the references.

/**
 * Analyze the references of a workitem
 */
private void analyzeReferences(IWorkItemReferences references) {
	List endpoints = references.getTypes();
	for (IEndPointDescriptor iEndPointDescriptor : endpoints) {
		System.out.println("Endpoint: "
			+ iEndPointDescriptor.getDisplayName() + " ID: "
			+ iEndPointDescriptor.getLinkType().getLinkTypeId());
		List typedReferences = references.getReferences(iEndPointDescriptor);
		for (IReference iReference : typedReferences) {
			analyzeReference(iReference);
		}
	}
}

The IWorkItemReferences provides all available link types for the contained references. The code above gets the list and iterates it to look at the references for each type. The code prints some information. The next step is to get all the references for a given endpoint and analyze each reference.

/**
 * Analyze a reference
 */
public void analyzeReference(IReference iReference) {
	if (iReference.isItemReference()) {
		Object resolvedRef = iReference.resolve();
		analyzeItem(resolvedRef);
	}
	if (iReference.isURIReference()){
		analyzeReferenceTarget(iReference);
	}
}

The code above checks each reference if it is a reference to an IItem for example an IWorkItem or an URI reference. For the item reference there is more to analyze so the code resolves it to get the object an passes it on. For an URI reference the code gets the URI and prints it.

The resolved object can now be analyzed in the code below. A cast is used to get to the contained element such as an IWorkItemHandle or a BuildResultHandle. Once the handle is available it is possible to use the ITeamreposiory.itemManager() to get the item from the handle and manipulate it.

/**
 * Analyze an Item
 */
private void analyzeItem(Object resolvedRef) {
	System.out.println(" Resolved item: "
		+ resolvedRef.toString());
	if(resolvedRef instanceof IWorkItemHandle){
		IWorkItemHandle handle = (IWorkItemHandle)resolvedRef;
	}
	if(resolvedRef instanceof BuildResultHandle){
		BuildResultHandle handle = (BuildResultHandle)resolvedRef;
	}
}

*Update* I looked deeper in what the client API provides in terms of accessing the elements referenced by the URI. Here is what I came up with. Please be aware that I am unsure if this works for all cases. It seems to be possible to resolve the element for example if it is in the same repository. If it is a work item you can then use the typical interfaces to access its data.

/**
 * Further analyze an item referenced by an URI
 * @param iReference
 */
public void analyzeReferenceTarget(IReference iReference) {
	URI uri = iReference.createURI();
	try {
		System.out.println("   Resolving URI: " + uri.toString());
		ITeamRepository teamRepo = (ITeamRepository) iReference.getLink().getOrigin();
		IAuditableClient auditableClient = (IAuditableClient) teamRepo.getClientLibrary(IAuditableClient.class);

		// get the location from the URI
		Location location = Location.location(uri);
		// resolve the item by location
		IAuditable referenced = auditableClient.resolveAuditableByLocation(location,
				ItemProfile.createFullProfile(location.getItemType()), null);
		// look for a referenced work item
		if (referenced instanceof IWorkItem) {
			IWorkItem referencedWI = (IWorkItem) referenced;
			System.out.println("   Resolved URI (resolve): "
				+ uri.toString() + " to: " + referencedWI.getId()  
				+ " " + referencedWI.getState2().toString());
		}
	} catch (TeamRepositoryException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}
	System.out.println("   Resolved URI: " + uri.toString());
}

This is pretty much the summary of how links work on the client. I hope the code is useful, and it is easy enough to enhance the code for other purposes. Please remember that there is few error handling at this point. You might want to enhance this.

Common API to create Link URI’s

If you want to provide a URI for elements such as work items, you can use the Location class to do so.

The following code creates two different URI’s for a work item that are used in different types of links.

IWorkItemCommon common = (IWorkItemCommon) teamRepository.getClientLibrary(IWorkItemCommon.class);

int id = new Integer(idString).intValue();
IWorkItem workItem = common.findWorkItemById(id,IWorkItem.SMALL_PROFILE, monitor);
if (workItem == null) {
	System.out.println("Work item: " + idString + " not found.");
	return false;
}

System.out.println("Work item: " + workItem.getId() + ".");
Location location = Location.namedLocation(workItem,((ITeamRepository) workItem.getOrigin()).publicUriRoot());
System.out.println("Named Location URI: " + location.toAbsoluteUri());
		
location = Location.itemLocation(workItem,((ITeamRepository) workItem.getOrigin()).publicUriRoot());
System.out.println("Item Location URI: " + location.toAbsoluteUri());

The named location looks something like

https://server:port/rtc/resource/itemName/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/45943

The item location looks something like

https://server:port/rtc/resource/itemOid/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/_cdH5kJ0REean7cO1UYIcNw

Different link types use the different locations for their endpoints. The API is common api and available in the client as well as the server.