Client Requirements

Communicating with the SAS Metadata Server

A client must connect to the SAS Metadata Server before sending any requests. After connecting, using an interface simply involves using its methods.

Standard Interface

A method is typically issued by declaring object variables that represent its parameters in the client, and then referencing the object variables in the method request. In this documentation, we refer to this process as the "standard interface." The standard interface is supported for the SAS Java Metadata Interface and all of the SAS Open Metadata Interface server interfaces.

When you issue a method using the standard interface, the SAS Metadata Server does not require you to use the published parameter names for the object variables. However, if you use a different name, the name in the object variable declaration must also be used to represent the parameter in the method request. In addition, the parameters need to be specified in the order given in the method documentation. As an example, consider the GetApplicationActionsAuthorizations method, whose documented syntax is:

GetApplicationActionsAuthorizations(credHandle, applicationContext, options, output);

When declaring object variables for the method's parameters, you do not have to use the parameter names CREDHANDLE, APPLICATIONCONTEXT, OPTIONS, and OUTPUT to represent the parameters. However, whatever names you do use, the object variable declarations must be specified in the method in the order given in the syntax statement.

DoRequest Interface

The SAS Open Metadata Interface IOMI server interface and the Status method from the IServer server interface can be submitted to the SAS Metadata Server using an alternate interface, called the DoRequest interface. The DoRequest interface is based on the IOMI DoRequest method. The DoRequest method is a messaging method whose sole purpose is to submit another method to the SAS Metadata Server. Clients declare object variables for the DoRequest method's parameters in the client. Then, clients submit another method in the DoRequest method's INMETADATA parameter. This other method's parameters are formatted in an XML string.

The DoRequest interface provides a standard way for a client to submit method requests to the SAS Metadata Server. Instead of the client parsing the submitted method's parameters, the SAS Metadata Server parses them. The format of the XML method string is described in DoRequest. The IOMI reference documentation includes examples of how to format methods for the DoRequest interface.

Because we encourage the use of the SAS Java Metadata Interface to read and write metadata over using the IOMI server interface directly in SAS 9.2, a Java client would not use the DoRequest interface. However, PROC METADATA accepts IOMI methods that are formatted for the DoRequest method's INMETADATA parameter as its input. For an example of how to submit from PROC METADATA an XML string that is formatted for the DoRequest method, see the PROC METADATA documentation in SAS Language Interfaces to Metadata.

When creating an XML string for the DoRequest method or PROC METADATA, you must use published parameter names in the XML elements representing the method parameters, with one exception. The submitted method's INMETADATA parameter should be represented by a <METADATA> element. For an example of how this element is used, see the DoRequest interface example in AddMetadata.

If a published parameter name is missing from the XML string, the SAS Metadata Server will return an error. The method parameters do not need to be specified in the order given in the syntax.

Top of Page