WebSphere brand IBM WebSphere XML Document Management Server, Version 7.0

Using XCAP to store and manage documents

The XCAP specification defines how an HTTP Web address can identify the way XML documents are stored on an XCAP server. It also defines how the URI can be used to identify entire XML documents, individual elements, or XML attributes that can be retrieved, updated, or deleted.

The XML documents are stored on an XCAP server, which acts as a repository for documents with each application having access to multiple documents for each user. Each XCAP resource on an XCAP server has an associated application. For the associated application to use the XCAP resources, the application must have the following usage information:

XCAP URI

The XCAP URI identifies the type of XML that is being stored or accessed, a unique identification of the XML document, and optionally, an XPath expression that can identify a specific XML node that is to be stored, deleted, or retrieved.

The general form of an XCAP URI used to access an XML document is as follows:

XCAP Root/AUID/Document Selector/~~/Node Selector
  • XCAP Root identifies the HTTP request host, port, and context root.
    • Example: http://myhost.ibm.com:9080/services/
  • AUID is the XCAP Application Unique ID. This identifies the type of XML document. Some AUIDs are defined within XCAP Usage specifications, user defined AUIDs can be developed using the XDMS toolkit.
    • Examples: resource-lists or rls-services
  • Document Selector is the portion of the URI which identifies the specific document to be stored or accessed. XCAP documents are segregated into two tree branches. The global branch contains documents which can only be created by administrators, but accessed by anybody. The users branch contains user-specific documents.
  • /~~/ is a separator between the document selector, and an optional Node Selector.
  • Node Selector is a limited XPath expression that can be used to identify a specific XML element or attribute which is to be updated, retrieved, or deleted.
A complete XCAP URI might look like this:

http://myhost.ibm.com:9080/services/rls-services/users/sip:user1@example.com/exampdoc.xml/~~/exampelement




Terms of use
(C) Copyright IBM Corporation 2009. All Rights Reserved.