About opening a vault

The methods described in About the document repository instance provide an AMDocumentRepository instance that is already opened. In most situations, it should not be necessary to open the repository explicitly, but it is good to understand the functionality of the OpenRepository method.

Before an AMDocumentRepository object is opened, it is no more than a definition of the vault and the context that the program needs to access. It can be used to query administrative information about the server and available datastores. In order to access data in a vault, a transaction needs to be started. This is done by calling the OpenRepository method. Each transaction is started with a set of arguments that determines the view of the data:

• User context: The user context is automatically set because the server automatically authenticates the user that is running the application. This is important for security and managing the user’s worklists. When Work Isolation Mode is used, the user context also determines whether a user can see the working copy of a document.
• Work area context: Changes in a work area are isolated from other contexts, so the active work area context can determine the version of documents the user will see, and also what actions can be performed on documents.
• Time context: When a date and time in history are specified, the repository will display a view of the vault as it existed at that time. In this case, the transaction will be read-only.

Related information

AMDocumentRepository object

About the document repository instance

About closing a vault

OpenRepository method

CloseRepository method

Understanding Work Isolation Mode