Programming Guides › Programming Guide for Java Connector Server › The Object Model › Metadata Definition › Defining Metadata for an Existing C++ Connector Server Based Connector

Defining Metadata for an Existing C++ Connector Server Based Connector

If you are reimplementing an existing connector that runs in the C++ Connector Server, you can create the basic skeleton of the metadata document by converting the parser table of the existing connector to metadata. This conversion process means that the LDAP attributes for the Java CS version of the connector are identical to the original connector.

You convert the parser table to metadata by running the command-line tool ptconvert, which is part of the Connector Xpress installation, located in conxp-home/bin.

Note: You must have the Admin SDK installed to gain access to the .PTY files required to run ptconvert.

An example of a command to convert a PTY file to metadata is:

ptconvert -e "c:\program files\CA\eTrust Admin SDK\eTrust\Admin" myconnector.pty myconnector.xml

The conversion produces a metadata XML file that matches the object model defined in the parser table. Manually add some additional metadata items required by the Java CS to the XML document. In particular, metadata properties like connectorMapTo and metadata properties used to trigger validator and converter plug-ins.

Note: For a complete list of all metadata properties, see com.ca.commons.datamodel.MetaDataDefs in the Java CS Javadoc.

Reimplement (in Java) any logic the Java CS framework or the base connector you derive from does not automatically handle, based on the metadata.

Connector code (excluding metadata) which has been ported to Java CS has been found to be 70 through 90 percent smaller than the original C++ Connector Server C++ code.