The specified directory is searched for files that match the specified file pattern (3) or the specific file name (4).

Unless otherwise specified (8), only the specified directory is searched.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise (10), the read-in file is deleted immediately after the creation of the backup file.

A separate job is created for each file found. If no files are found or the directory does not exist, no job is created, but you will find corresponding entries in the "General messages" in the Control Center.

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(1) You can explicitly log in to external systems with an SMB login. You can also select an SMB channel. Important note: If you make manual entries here or select a channel, then (14) is deactivated. Note: If an SMB channel is selected, the value //<SMBHOST>/ is automatically entered in field (2). The placeholder <SMBHOST> is replaced at runtime with the value of field Server in the SMB channel (without smb://). Old profiles (which do not yet contain the placeholder) can be adjusted in the Admin Console by executing the class com.ebd.hub.datawizard.util.update.AdjustSMBUrl (without parameters).

(2) The directory in which to search for files. See also system variable VAR_SYS_FILE_PATH. Under Windows, access to external shares is possible using the UNC syntax: //<server name>/<directory name>. Slashes (/) and no backslashes (\) are to be used. Several directories can be specified and processed (→ see section below). These directories must be separated by a semicolon (;). Example: /tmp/subdir1;/tmp/subdir2;/var. Within the file pattern and the directory, all timestamp placeholders of the form <yyyy>, <dd> etc. are resolved. Variables can also be used, but only variables with the prefix MSG_CALL_ will be available in phase 1.

(3) File name pattern, see also (4). You can enter multiple file name patterns separated by the pipe (|) character (e.g. *.txt|*.csv). Regular expressions are supported. Note: Files whose names start with a dot (.) are not considered by this Input Agent!

(4) By default, a list of all files in directory (2) and any subdirectories, see (8), is created and checked against the file pattern (3). If this checkbox here is set, (3) is interpreted as a specific file name and exactly this file is requested. This can lead to significantly better performance.

(5) If the specified lock file exists, the profile run is aborted and no job is created (l og entries can then be found on page " General messages" in the Control Center). If it does not exist, it will be created by the job and deleted again when the job is finished.

(6) The files can be sorted for processing by filename or timestamp in descending or ascending order or as supplied by the operating system. Note: The accuracy of timestamps in Windows systems is in the minute range, in Unix/Linux systems in the seconds range.

(7) Specifies whether files that are older or younger than this information should be used. There will be no check for values 0/0 (like in the screenshot). This option only makes sense if you do not delete files and do not respond to file events. Example: The profile searches for new files every 30 minutes. If you now set 0 hours and 30 minutes as values, then files that have already been processed in a previous run will be ignored this time because their timestamp is older than the current time minus 30 minutes.

(8) By default, only the specified directory (2) is searched for files. If you also want to search in subdirectories, please select this checkbox.

(9) If the specified directory (2) is not found, corresponding error entries will appear in the "General messages" in the Control Center. If you want to prevent this, please set this checkbox here. Entries will still be created, but they will not be marked as errors.

(10) By default, read-in files are deleted. If you want to prevent this, please check this box.

(11) Files can be retained or deleted after processing. Regardless of this setting, empty files can be deleted from the specified directories.

(12) If this checkbox is set, empty files generate a job as well.

(13) If this checkbox is set, files whose name start with ~ will also be processed. Normally these files are ignored.

(14) The profile responds to the following events of the configured files:

Creating.
Renaming (that is, an existing file is renamed and the new name is configured).
Altering.

Important notes:

If you make manual entries in (1) or select a channel, this checkbox (and function) here will be deactivated, since events cannot be detected reliably with SMB shares.
If this checkbox is set, times can no longer be defined for the profile.
Lobster_data also determines file events via the timestamp of the file. If the timestamp of the file is before the current time, then no file event is determined for this file. This is particularly important in Windows, as the timestamp is retained when moving a file under Windows.
When activating the file events, no variables and no constants may be used in (2), (3) and (5).

(15) If this checkbox is set, several instances of this profile can work in parallel. The checkbox "Profile may only run in one instance" must not be set then for this profile.

Notes

See also section Security - Defining Access Restrictions.
If using this input agent, a maximum size of the input file can be checked. See section Maximum Size of Input Files.
When starting the system or (re-) configuring a profile that responds to file events (14), a dummy event is triggered to read, if necessary, files that appeared during offline operation.
File events (14) lead to a higher system load. Please check if the immediate response is really necessary, or if an execution every 5 or 10 minutes is enough. When accessing an external share, we do not recommend using the file events, because the behaviour then strongly depends on the other system.
If existing files are to be deleted after processing, Lobster_data checks to see if there is are write permissions for this file and the parent directory. If there are no write permissions, these files will not be processed and no job will be created.

Processing of several directories in Input Agent "File"

The timed Input Agent of type "File" behaves as follows if multiple directories are specified.

A list of directories is created. Then one directory after the other is gone through. This is the actual fetching job.
A list of found files is created for each directory and for each found file an additional job is started.
If an access error occurs, you can prevent an error from being generated for this job by setting checkbox Ignore if directory does not exist and do not throw an error. In that case, the directory causing the error is skipped and the processing continues with the next directory.