File Connector

Source Code

The file connector traverses a file system and publishes Lucille documents representing its findings. In your Configuration, specify pathsToStorage, representing the path(s) you want to traverse. Each path can be a path to the local file system or a URI for a supported cloud provider.

Working with Cloud Storage

When you are providing FileConnector with URIs to cloud storage, you also need to apply the appropriate configuration for any cloud providers used. For each provider, you’ll need to provide a form of authentication; you can optionally specify the maximum number of files (maxNumOfPages) that Lucille will load into memory for a given request.

• Azure: Specify the needed options in azure in your Config. You must provide connectionString, or you must provide accountName and accountKey.
• Google: Specify the needed options in gcp in your Config. You must provide pathToServiceKey.
• S3: Specify the needed options in s3 in your Config. You must provide accessKeyId, secretAccessKey, and region.
• For each of these providers, in their configuration, you can optionally include maxNumOfPages as well.

Applying FileHandlers

Some of the files that your FileConnector encounters will, themselves, contain data that you want to extract more documents from! For example, the FileConnector may encounter a .csv file, where each row itself represents a Document to be published. This is where FileHandlers come in - they will individually process these files and create more Lucille documents from their data. See File Handlers for more.

In order to use File Handlers, you need to specify the appropriate configuration within your Config - specifically, each File Handler you want to use will be a map within the fileOptions you specify. You can use csv, json, or xml. See the documentation for each File Handler to see what arguments are needed / accepted.

File Options

File options determine how you handle and process files you encounter during a traversal. Some commonly used options include:

• getFileContent: Whether, during traversal, the FileConnector should add an array of bytes representing the file’s contents to the Lucille document it publishes. This will slow down traversal significantly and is resource intensive. On the cloud, this will download the file contents.
• handleArchivedFiles/handleCompressedFiles: Whether you want to handle archive or compressed files, respectively, during your traversal. For cloud files, this will download the file’s contents.
• moveToAfterProcessing: A path to move files to after processing.
• moveToErrorFolder: A path to move files to if an error occurs.

Filter Options

Filter options determine which files will/won’t be processed & published in your traversal. All filter options are optional. If you specify multiple filter options, files must comply with all of them to be processed & published.

• includes: A list of patterns for the only file names that you want to include in your traversal.
• excludes: A list of patterns for file names that you want to exclude from your traversal.
• lastModifiedCutoff: Filter out files that haven’t been modified recently. For example, specify "1h", and only files modified within the last hour will be processed & published.
• lastPublishedCutoff: Filter out files that were recently published by Lucille. For example, specify "1h", and only files published by Lucille more than an hour ago (or never published) will be processed & published. Requires you to provide state configuration, otherwise, it will not be enforced!

State

The File Connector can keep track of when files were last known to be published by Lucille. This allows you to use FilterOptions.lastPublishedCutoff and avoid repeatedly publishing the same files in a short period of time.

In order to use state with the File Connector, you’ll need to configure a connection to a JDBC-compatible database. The database can be embedded, or it can be remote.

It’s important to note that File Connector state is designed to be efficient and lightweight. As such, keep a few points in mind:

1. Files that were recently moved / renamed files will not have the lastPublishedCutoff applied.
2. In your File Connector configuration, it is important that you consistently capitalize directory names in your pathToStorage, if you are using state.
3. Each database table should be used for only one connector configuration.