XProc 3.0: file steps

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

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

The p:directory-list step produces a list of the contents of a specified directory.

<p:declare-step type="p:directory-list">
     <p:output port="result" content-types="application/xml"/>
     <p:option name="path" required="true" as="xs:anyURI"/>        
     <p:option name="detailed" as="xs:boolean" select="false()"/>  
     <p:option name="max-depth" as="xs:string?" select="'1'"/>     
     <p:option name="include-filter" as="xs:string*"/>             
     <p:option name="exclude-filter" as="xs:string*"/>             
     <p:option name="override-content-types" as="array(array(xs:string))?"/>
</p:declare-step>

Conformant processors must support directory paths whose scheme is file. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:directory-list, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0090) if an implementation does not support directory listing for a specified scheme.

If path is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:directory-list in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0017) if the absolute path does not identify a directory. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0012) if the contents of the directory path are not available to the step due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

If the detailed option is true, the pipeline author is requesting additional information about the matching entries, see Section 2.1, “Directory list details”.

The max-depth option may contain either the string “unbounded” or a string that may be cast to a non-negative integer. An integer value of 0 means that only information about the directory that is given in the path option is returned. A max-depth of 1, which is the default, will effect that also information about the top-level directory’s immediate children will be included. For larger values of max-depth, also the content of directories will be considered recursively up to the maximum depth, and it will be included as children of the corresponding c:directory elements.

If present, the value of the include-filter or exclude-filter option must be a sequence of strings, each one representing a regular expressions as specified in [XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.1], section 7.61 “Regular Expression Syntax”. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0147) if a specified value is not a valid XPath regular expression.

The regular expressions will be matched against an item’s file system path relative to the top-level path that was given in the path option. If the item is a directory, a trailing slash will be appended. The matching is done unanchored: it is a match if the regular expression matches part of the relative item’s file system path. Informally: matching behaves like applying the XPath matches#2 function, like in matches($path, $regular-expression).

Examples: A file file.txt in the directory specified by path will remain file.txt, a relative path dir1/file.txt will remain dir1/file.txt, while a relative path dir1/dir2 will become dir1/dir2/ if dir2 is a directory.

Regular expressions that match a/a/b/file.txt are, for example, ^(\w+/){2,3}.+\.txt$, a/a/b/, or /file\.[^/]+$.

If any include-filter pattern matches the slash-augmented relative path, the entry is included in the output. If a directory’s path matches the inclusion regex, the directory’s content will not automatically be included, too. They need to match, the regular expression, too. So the filter regex ^dir/ will match the directory content but ^dir/$ won’t, and as a consequence the directory’s content will not be included in the result.

If a relative path is matched by an include filter, all its ancestor directories starting from the initial directory (but not their content if not included explicitly) will be included, too.

<c:directory xml:base="file:///home/jane/" name="jane">
  <c:directory xml:base="a/" name="a">
    <c:directory xml:base="a/" name="a">
      <c:directory xml:base="b/" name="b">
        <c:file xml:base="file.txt" name="file.txt"/>
      </c:directory>
    </c:directory>
  </c:directory>
</c:directory>

If the exclude-filter pattern matches the slash-augmented relative path, the entry (and all of its content in case of a directory) is excluded in the output.

If both options are provided, the include filter is processed first, then the exclude filter. As a result, an item is included if it matches (at least) one of the include-filter values and none of the exclude-filter values.

If no include-filter is given, that is, if include-filter is an empty sequence, any item will be included in the result (unless it is excluded by exclude-filter).

The override-content-types option can be used to partially override the content-type determination mechanism. This works just like with the override-content-types option of p:archive-manifest and p:unarchive (see Overriding content types in XProc 3.0+: Standard Step Library), except that the regular expression matching is done against the paths as used for the matching of the include-filter and exclude-filter options.

The result document produced for the specified directory path has a c:directory document element whose base URI, attached as an xml:base attribute, is the absolute directory path (expressed as a URI that ends in a slash) and whose name attribute (without a trailing slash) is the last segment of the directory path. The same base URI is attached as the resulting document’s base-uri property and, accordingly, as its document node’s base URI.

<c:directory
  name = string
  size? = integer
  readable? = boolean
  writable? = boolean
  last-modified? = dateTime
  hidden? = boolean>
    (c:file |
     c:directory |
     c:other)*
</c:directory>

Its contents are determined as follows, based on the entries in the directory identified by the directory path. For each entry in the directory and subject to the rules that are imposed by the max-depth, include-filter, and exclude-filter options, a c:file, a c:directory, or a c:other element is produced, as follows:

Each of the elements c:file, c:directory, and c:other has a name attribute, whose value is a relative IRI reference, giving the (local) file or directory name.

Each of these element also contains the corresponding resource’s URI in an xml:base attribute, which may be a relative URI for any but the top-level c:directory element. In the case of c:directory, it must end in a trailing slash. This way, users will always be able to compute the absolute URI for any of these elements by applying fn:base-uri() to it.

The p:file-copy step copies a file or a directory to a given target.

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

The p:file-copy step copies the file or directory named in href to the new position specified in target. Any non existent directory contained in target will be created before copying starts. If the target is a directory, the step attempts to copy the file or directory into that directory, preserving its base name. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0157) if the href option names a directory, but the target option names a file.

If the overwrite evaluates to false, no existing file will be changed.

Conformant processors must support URIs whose scheme is file for the href and target options of p:file-copy. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:file-copy, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0144) if an implementation does not support p:file-copy for a specified scheme.

If href or target are relative, they are made absolute against the base URI of the element on which they are specified (p:with-option or p:file-copy in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0145) if p:file-copy is not available to the step due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

If no error occurs, the step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of the target.

If an error occurs and fail-on-error is false, the step returns a c:error element which may contain additional, implementation-defined, information about the nature of the error. In the case of a recursive copy, processing stops at the first error.

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

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

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

The p:file-delete step attempts to delete an existing file or directory named in href. If the named file or directory does not exist, the step just returns a c:result element as described below.

Conformant processors must support URIs whose scheme is file for the href option of p:file-delete. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:file-delete, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0142) if an implementation does not support p:file-delete for a specified scheme.

If href is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-delete in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0143) if p:file-delete is not available to the step due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

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

The step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of the file or directory.

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

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

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

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

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

Conformant processors must support URIs whose scheme is file for the href option of p:file-info. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:file-info, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0134) if an implementation does not support p:file-info for a specified scheme.

If href is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-info in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0135) if p:file-info is not available to the step due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

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

The override-content-types option can be used to partially override the content-type determination mechanism for files. This works just like with the override-content-types option of p:archive-manifest and p:unarchive (see Overriding content types in XProc 3.0+: Standard Step Library), except that the regular expression matching is done against the absolute URI of the file.

Each of the elements c:file, c:directory, and c:other has a name attribute, whose value is a relative IRI reference, giving the (local) file or directory name.

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

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

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

The p:file-mkdir step creates a directory.

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

The p:file-mkdir create the directory named in the href option. If this includes more than one directory component, all of the intermediate components are created. If the directory already exists the step just returns the c:result element as described below. The path separator is implementation-defined.

Conformant processors must support URIs whose scheme is file for the href option of p:file-mkdir. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:file-mkdir, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0140) if an implementation does not support p:file-mkdir for a specified scheme.

If href is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-mkdir in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0141) if p:file-mkdir not available to the step due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

The step returns a c:result element containing the absolute URI of the directory.

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

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

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

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

The p:file-move step moves the file or directory named in href to the new location specified in target. If the target option specifies an existing directory, the step attempts to move the file or directory into that directory, preserving its base name. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0158) if the href option names a directory, but the target option names a file.

Conformant processors must support URIs whose scheme is file for the href and target options of p:file-move. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:file-move, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0148) if an implementation does not support p:file-move for a specified scheme.

If href or target are relative, they are made absolute against the base URI of the element on which they are specified (p:with-option or p:file-move in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0149) if p:file-move is not available to the step due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conformant processors must support URIs whose scheme is file for the href option of p:file-create-tempfile. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:file-create-tempfile, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0138) if an implementation does not support p:file-create-tempfile for a specified scheme.

If href is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-create-tempfile in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0139) if p:file-create-tempfile cannot be completed due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The p:file-touch step updates the modification timestamp of the file specified in the href option. If the file specified by href does not exist, an empty file will be created at the given location.

Conformant processors must support URIs whose scheme is file for the href option of p:file-touch. It is implementation-defined what other schemes are supported by p:file-touch, and what the interpretation of ‘directory’, ‘file’ and ‘contents’ is for those schemes. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0136) if an implementation does not support p:file-touch for a specified scheme.

If href is relative, it is made absolute against the base URI of the element on which it is specified (p:with-option or p:file-touch in the case of a syntactic shortcut value). It is a dynamic error (err:XD0064) if the base URI is not both absolute and valid according to [RFC 3986]. It is a dynamic error (err:XC0137) if p:file-touch cannot be completed due to access restrictions in the environment in which the pipeline is run.

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

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

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

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

These steps can raise dynamic errors.

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

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

The following specific errors can be raised by these steps: