Executing Actions Programmatically

In some rare cases it might be necessary to execute server actions programmatically. This allows to substitute default implementations of UI procedures with some customized procedures and/or automated responses.

To execute an action programmatically:

  • Get action's Context object from a ContextManager
  • Call ActionsUtils.initAction() static method providing the Context and action name. ActionExecutionMode should be set either to NORMAL or to HEADLESS if no human operator is actually executing UI procedures. initAction() will return an ActionIdentifier to be later used for stepping the action.
  • Call ActionsUtils.stepAction() in a loop until it returns null. Every iteration of stepAction() will return a certain UI procedure to be manually executed as a GenericActionCommand. Each call starting from the second one should include your manually formed GenericActionResponse to the previously received GenericActionCommand.
  • Process each GenericActionCommand according to its type, parameters and title.

Each action is running as a separate Iotellect Server thread. If, for some reason, you will stop calling stepAction() until it finally returns with null result server-side action thread will hang until disconnection (or forever if the action is manually executed from inside a server plugin). There is no way to stop a server action before it comes to its logical end.

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