PHP3 Manual
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Hyperwave functions

Table of Contents
hw_Changeobject
hw_Children
hw_ChildrenObj
hw_Close
hw_Connect
hw_Cp
hw_Deleteobject
hw_DocumentAttributes
hw_DocumentBodyTag
hw_DocumentSize
hw_Echo_Error
hw_EditText
hw_Error
hw_FreeDocument
hw_GetParents
hw_GetParentsObj
hw_GetChildColl
hw_GetChildCollObj
hw_GetObject
hw_GetAndLock
hw_GetText
hw_GetObjectByQuery
hw_GetObjectByQueryObj
hw_GetObjectByQueryColl
hw_GetObjectByQueryCollObj
hw_GetChildDocColl
hw_GetChildDocCollObj
hw_GetAnchors
hw_GetAnchorsObj
hw_Mv
hw_Identify
hw_InCollections
hw_Info
hw_InsColl
hw_InsDoc
hw_InsertDocument
hw_New_Document
hw_Object2Array
hw_OutputDocument
hw_pConnect
hw_PipeDocument
hw_Root
hw_Unlock
hw_Username

Introduction

Hyperwave has been developed at IICM in Graz. It started with the name Hyper-G and changed to Hyperwave when it was commercialised (If I remember properly it was in 1996).

Hyperwave is not free software. The current version, 4.0, is available at www.hyperwave.com. A time limited version can be downloaded for free (30 days).

Hyperwave is an information system similar to a database (HIS, Hyperwave Information Server). Its focus is the storage and management of documents. A document can be any possible piece of data that may as well be stored in file. Each document is accompanied by its object record. The object record contains meta data for the document. The meta data is a list of attributes which can be extended by the user. Certain attributes are always set by the Hyperwave server, other may be modified by the user.

Besides the documents, all hyper links contained in a document are stored as object records as well. Hyper links which are in a document will be removed from it and stored as individual objects, when the document is inserted into the database. The object record of the link contains information about where it starts and where it ends. In order to gain the original document you will have to retrieve the plain document without the links and the list of links and reinsert them (The functions hw_pipedocument() and hw_gettext() do this for you. The advantage of separating links from the document is obvious. Once a document to which a link is pointing to changes its name, the link can easily be modified accordingly. The document containing the link is not affected at all. You may even add a link to a document without modifying the document itself.

The network protocol to communicate with the Hyperwave server is called HG-CSP (Hyper-G Client/Server Protocol). It is based on messages to initiate certain actions, e.g. get object record. In early versions of the Hyperwave Server two native clients (Harmony, Amadeus) were provided for communication with the server. Those two disappeared when Hyperwave was commercialized. As a replacement a so called wavemaster was provided. The wavemaster is like a protocol converter from HTTP to HG-CSP. The idea is to do all the administration of the database and visualisation of documents by a web interface. The wavemaster implements a set of placeholders for certain actions to customise the interface. This set of placeholders is called the PLACE Language. PLACE lacks a lot of features of a real programming language and any extension to it only enlarges the list of placeholders. This has led to the use of JavaScript which IMO does not make life easier.

Adding Hyperwave support to PHP3 should fill in the gap of a missing programming language for interface customisation. It implements all the messages as defined by the HG-CSP but also provides more powerful commands to e.g. retrieve complete documents.

Hyperwave has its own terminology to name certain pieces of information. This has widely been taken over and extended. Almost all functions operate on one of the following data types.

Several functions which return an array of object records do also return an associated array with statistical information about them. The array is the last element of the object record array. The statistical array contains the following entries:

Hidden

Number of object records with attribute PresentationHints set to Hidden.

CollectionHead

Number of object records with attribute PresentationHints set to CollectionHead.

FullCollectionHead

Number of object records with attribute PresentationHints set to FullCollectionHead.

CollectionHeadNr

Index in array of object records with attribute PresentationHints set to CollectionHead.

FullCollectionHeadNr

Index in array of object records with attribute PresentationHints set to FullCollectionHead.

Total

Total: Number of object records.


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