Copies webs, topics, attachments, or part of them
This extension can be used to copy topics and webs. It allows to select which parts of an item is to copied.
Typical use cases are:
- duplicate topic assets: copy attachments, comments or preference settings to another existing topic
- deploy wiki applications: copy a selection of topics to a target web
- workflow scenarios: separate work on a draft topic from its last approved version by creating a copy first and copy the finished draft over as a newly approved version
- versioned webs: create a new web for each version of a product
- merge webs: create a new web by copying a list of webs to the new web
- publish content: from a closed quality-managed authors-only area to a public read-only web
Usage
The work horse for all operation modes is a single service script called
copy. It takes a
mode parameter for which
a copy agent is created to perform the actual operation. The basic skeleton for a form to call the
copy service looks like this:
<form action="%SCRIPTURLPATH{"copy"}%/%WEB%/%TOPIC%" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="mode" value="topic" />
<input type="hidden" name="includepart" value="fields" />
<input type="hidden" name="includepart" value="form" />
<input type="text" name="destination" size="80" />
<!-- more parameters -->
<input type="submit" />
</form>
Parameters
General
| Name |
Description |
Default |
mode |
select the type of operation; possible values are: -
topic: copy one topic or parts of it to a destination topic -
topics: copy a list of topic to a destination -
web: copy a web to a destination -
application: Create a web supported by a given application -
stub: create a stub for a given application topic |
|
debug |
boolean flag to switch on/off debug output; messages are printed to the error log of the web browser |
off |
dry |
boolean flag to switch on/off a dry mode; if enabled none of the operations will actually be saved permanently |
off |
onlynew |
boolean flag to enable/disable a check for the destination to already exist; an exception will be raised if enabled and the target object already; the target object will be overwritten in case it already exists and the flag is disabled; to be precise, a new revision will be created in this case |
on |
forcenewrevision |
force the save to increment the revision counter |
off |
dontlog |
mark this change so it doesn't appear in the statistics |
off |
minor |
True if this change is not to be notified |
off |
clear |
boolean flag; when enabled data on the destination will be deleted first before copying the source data; (exception: text is always cleared before copying it over); when disabled data of source and destination will be merged |
off |
redirectto |
topic or url where to redirect the browser after a successful copy operation |
|
nohandlers |
boolean flag; when enabled plugin handlers will not be called, such as beforeSaveHander and afterSaveHandler |
off |
Mode: topic
| Name |
Description |
Default |
source |
the source topic to be copied |
%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC% |
dstWeb |
the destination web where to copy source to |
%BASEWEB% |
dstTopic, destination |
the destination topic where to copy source to |
source |
includepart, includeparts |
a list of parts of a topic to be copied; known part-ids are text, attachments, all, preferences, parent, form, fields, or any other custom meta data alias such as comment from MetaCommentPlugin |
all |
excludepart, excludeparts |
a list of parts to exclude from the copy process |
|
include<part-id> |
when meta data is named as is the case for fields you may specify a regular expression in includefields that all fields must match when copying formfields |
|
exclude<part-id> |
same as include<part-id> but in reverse logic |
|
fromrev |
specify the starting revision to be copied over; if left undefined, will only the top revision be copied |
|
torev |
specify the last revision to be copied over |
|
preservetopicinfo |
boolean flag; this will try to preserve the original date and authorship of the source; note that this may not always be possible when the top revision of the target is earlier than the revision(s) to be copied over; further note, that attachments of old revisions not present in the top revision cannot be recreated on the taregt topic as they are versioned independently |
|
trashsource |
boolean flag; this will trash the source after successfully copying it to the target; note: when only parts of the topic have been copied will the rest of it get lost! |
off |
Mode: topics
| Name |
Description |
Default |
source |
a list of topics to be copied |
%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC% |
destination |
the destination where to copy all source topics to; this can either be a web or a topic; in the latter case all source topcis will be copied to the destination |
|
All parameters of the
topic mode apply to each topic in the
source list.
Mode: web
| Name |
Description |
Default |
source |
the source web to be copied |
%BASEWEB% |
destination |
the destination web where to copy all topics of the source web to |
|
template |
a template web to be used in case the destination web does not exist yet and needs to be created on the base of a template |
_empty |
search |
search expression to find topics in the source web. See System.QuerySearch for more information |
.* |
include |
regular expression topics in the source web must match to be included in the copy process |
|
exclude |
regluar expression; excludes matching topics from the source web |
|
Mode: application
| Name |
Description |
Default |
source |
the source topicsto be copied |
%BASEWEB% |
destination |
the destination web where to copy all source topicsto |
|
template |
a template web to be used in case the destination web does not exist yet and needs to be created on the base of a template |
_default |
Mode: stub
| Name |
Description |
Default |
source |
the source topic to be copied |
%BASEWEB%.%BASETOPIC% |
destination |
the destination topic where to copy source to |
source |
Examples
Copy one or more topics to a destination
Installation Instructions
You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server.
Open configure, and open the "Extensions" section. "Extensions Operation and Maintenance" Tab → "Install, Update or Remove extensions" Tab. Click the "Search for Extensions" button.
Enter part of the extension name or description and press search. Select the desired extension(s) and click install. If an extension is already installed, it will
not show up in the
search results.
You can also install from the shell by running the extension installer as the web server user: (Be sure to run as the webserver user, not as root!)
cd /path/to/foswiki
perl tools/extension_installer <NameOfExtension> install
If you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in
configure, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See
https://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.
Dependencies
None
Change History
| 12 Nov 2019: |
fix copy cgi script |
| 26 Jul 2019: |
fix use of store; create a new revision when copying attachments instead of erasing anything that existed before |
| 11 Jun 2019: |
added copy perl api; added nohandlers option; fixed copying attachments |
| 21 Nov 2018: |
added trashsource to topic agent; fixed memory leaks |
| 09 Feb 2018: |
added feature to restore a subset of topic revisions |
| 30 Jun 2017: |
added application mode (by Foswiki:Main/BramVanOosterhout) |
| 25 Sep 2015: |
added support for unicode foswiki |
| 10 Jun 2014: |
improved error handling; make messages translatable |
| 30 May 2014: |
added forcenewrevision, minor and dontlog |
| 22 Oct 2013: |
initial release |
Automation