Grouper Users - Open Discussion List

[Dominique Petitpierre <>]

Hello,

On 09/04/2012 02:00 AM, Chris Hyzer wrote:
> I created a Jira:
>
> https://bugs.internet2.edu/jira/browse/GRP-841
>
> Its not easy to fix since multi-valued subject attributes have not been an 
> often-used feature of Grouper and could use some attention.  e.g. in WS you 
> cannot get multi-valued attributes back in separate distinct values...

OK, thanks!

In the meantime, for those who need something now or for an earlier
release, here is an example of a workaround using the
subjectVirtualAttribute feature (tested on Grouper 1.6.3 and 2.1.1):

In grouper/WEB-INF/classes/sources.xml add the following lines (in
this context case is significant in the attribute names which is
useful to keep the same spelling):

    <init-param>
      <param-name>subjectVirtualAttribute_0_EmployeeType</param-name>
      <param-value>
${subject.getAttributeValueOrCommaSeparated('employeeType')?:""}
      </param-value>
    </init-param>

If needed, change the subject.attributes.order.<source_id> parameter
in grouper/WEB-INF/classes/resources/grouper/media.properties to
include EmployeeType (instead of employeeType), e.g.

subject.attributes.order.mytest=description,EmployeeType,mail,subjectType,id

After restarting the application server the values of employeeType
will be displayed separated by a comma and a space. E.g:

 EmployeeType   student, staff


If the values are very long (e.g. values of organizationalUnitName)
and are displayed on many lines, the commas might be difficult to
see. One could then create multiple virtual attributes. E.g.:

    <init-param>
      <param-name>subjectVirtualAttribute_0_employeeType1</param-name>
      <param-value>
${subjectUtils.defaultIfNull(subject.getAttributeValueOrCommaSeparated('employeeType'),"").replaceFirst(",.*","")}
      </param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>subjectVirtualAttribute_0_employeeType2</param-name>
      <param-value>
${subjectUtils.defaultIfNull(subject.getAttributeValueOrCommaSeparated('employeeType'),"").replaceFirst("^[^,]*(,
)?([^,]*).*","$2")}
      </param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>subjectVirtualAttribute_0_employeeType3</param-name>
      <param-value>
${subjectUtils.defaultIfNull(subject.getAttributeValueOrCommaSeparated('employeeType'),"").replaceFirst("^[^,]*(,
)?[^,]*(, )?([^,]*).*","$3")}
      </param-value>
    </init-param>


For the same example values, they will be displayed like this:

 employeeType1   student
 employeeType2   staff
 employeeType3


If the very long values contain commas, it's becoming complicated with
JEXL expressions. But a generic solution like the one described in
https://bugs.internet2.edu/jira/browse/GRP-841 would be simpler and
better.


References:

Grouper GRP-390,  allow virtual attributes for subjects

https://bugs.internet2.edu/jira/browse/GRP-390?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel

Grouper Training – Admin – Subject API – Part 3
 
http://www.internet2.edu/grouper/training/admin/subject_api/admin-subject_api-part3-01.pptx

Java Expression Language,  Commons JEXL Syntax
 http://commons.apache.org/jexl/reference/syntax.html


Best regards,
Dominique
-- 
Mr Dominique Petitpierre, user=Dominique.Petitpierre domain=unige.ch
IT Division, University of Geneva, Switzerland