Payloads

The XML documents exchanged by CMS components via the XML Interface are called Payloads. The ses-payload element is the root element of all request and response documents:

<!ELEMENT ses-payload (ses-header, (ses-response+ | ses-request+))>
<!ATTLIST ses-payload
  payload-id CDATA #REQUIRED
  timestamp CDATA #REQUIRED
  version CDATA #REQUIRED
>

The attributes of ses-payload elements have the following meaning:

• payload-id
  Payload ID. This ID is generated by the creator of the payload and must be unique within a communication context. Such a context is formed by the Content Management Server (e.g. of a company) and all the clients that communicate with the server. As a rule, the payload-id is generated by an algorithm.
• timestamp
  Date and time (timestamp) of payload creation. The timestamp must be specified in canonical form as a 14-digit string (beginning on the left: year 4-digit, month 2-digit, day 2-digit, hour 2-digit, minutes 2-digit, seconds 2-digit) in GMT (Example: 20110716020223).
• version
  Version of the XML Interface protocol. The structure of the payload depends on the version. At the time of writing this manual, the XML Interface protocol has the version number 2.1.

In a request a client indicates which version of the XML Interface protocol it is using by specifying a value for version.

The Search Engine Server supports – in addition to the current version of the protocol – all versions which were previously valid. If the client is using one of these versions, the server creates a response payload in this version. Otherwise, it responds with an error message which indicates the protocol incompatibility. The server creates this message in its current version of the XML Interface protocol.