Data File Structure

Concept

CHILI Publisher is a completely file based solution. Rather than working with a database, all data is stored in XML files, with indexes and cache data. Some areas visible in the BackOffice (eg the tree structure of documents or assets) correspond one on one with matching files within that file structure.

NOTE: working directly on the file structure (either manually or programmatically) is not technically and fully supported. Please do so only after consulting with a CHILI Publish employee (or on the advice of same employee). We can either point you to a suitable API driven approach, or include the operation in our testing and QA processes.

File location

The location of your data files depends on the installation. Typically this is something like D:\CHILI\data. As an administrator you can find this information in CHILI BackOffice (Server Settings in the main menu).

File structure

Within the data directory, you will find the following sub-directories:

• config

• environments

• logs

• queue

• temp

config

Holds general (server) configuration for the entire installation, and the currently active api keys.

logs

Storage of log files for administrative and/or debugging purposes. The settings for which events within CHILI are logged can be configured in CHILI BackOffice (Server Log Settings in the main menu).

Log files are cleaned out automatically after a few hours (also configurable)

queue

Holds the current and recent tasks for processing by the windows service. Tasks follow the following route while being processed:

• queue

• processing

• log

If relevant to the task, a separate log file may be present within editor_cli_log

temp

Holds the temporary files needed across components (the web application and windows service). Depending on the installation, each component (or each physical server) may also contain configuration for temp files which are only applicable in a local context (to preserve bandwidth in cases where the data files are maintained on a separate file server).

Temp files are cleaned up automatically.

environments

The main data structure for the various environment. Each environment has its own subdirectory (with a matching name).

An environment's data directory contains the following sub-directories:

• cache_data

• colorprofiles

• config

• private_data

• resources

config holds the basic settings for the environment.

colorprofiles contains the color profiles available within the environment for Image Conversion Profiles (the initial profiles are copied from a CHILI application directory).

cache_data holds cached information for all relevant resources. Within each resource directory, a sub-directory exists per resource item, with a matching ID. Data in the cache_data directory is guaranteed to be recreated if required by any operation within the system (although of course this will cause a delay in that operation). So this data can safely be deleted (or skipped in backup procedures), as long as your application can accept slightly longer response times the first time the data is needed next time.

This directory contains information such as:

• previews of resource items (thumbnails, full-sized previews, ...)

• extracted information of images (embedded icc profiles, metadata, ...)

• compiled versions of fonts

• ...

private_data holds a similar sub-structure of information, but contains information which should be preserved. This includes information such as the resource item's history

resources contains the actual data files for all resources (Documents, Users, Assets, ...) within each environment. Each resource contains a series of data.xml files within the root directory, which hold the index of the resource items (a link between their location on disk and their internal ID). Depending on the type of resource (list, directory_file or directory_object), it also contains more data:

• list: (eg: Users, PDF Export Settings): all information on the items is stored within the data.xml files

• directory_file: (eg: Assets, Fonts): a file-based directory structure is included

• directory_object: (eg: Documents, WorkSpaces): a file-based directory structure is included, with each file being an XML representation of the relevant resource item