› Reference › Basic Engine Robots › Steps and Data Converters › Steps › Extract Target

Extract Target

This action extracts data from a target URL and stores it in a variable or to a file. If the selected variable can not store the actual data (such as attempting to store a PDF file in an XML variable), an error may be generated when executing the action.

The action can also optionally store the actual content type and file name of the extracted data in user specified variables.

Properties

The Extract Target action can be configured using the following properties:

Location

This property specifies which target URL to extract from.

URL

Enter the URL directly in the text field provided. Note that standard URLs using the HTTP protocol can be written in shorthand. For example, "http://www.kofax.com" can be written instead as "www.kofax.com".

URL in Found Tag

Specifies that the found tag contains the URL.

URL in Variable

Specifies that the URL should be read from a specified variable.

URL from Expression

Specifies an expression as the URL to open.

URL from Converters

Specifies a list of data converters whose output is used as the URL to open.

URL Loaded when Clicking

Specifies that the found node should be clicked, and the URL that would have been loaded as a result of this is used. For instance, if the result of clicking the found node resulted in a form submission, the data loaded by the Load Page step will be the result of the form submission.

Store Data In

This specifies where to store the extracted data. There are two choices for this:

Variable

Specifies the variable in which to store the extracted data. The variable must be one of the following type: Binary, Image, PDF, Text, HTML, XML, or Excel.

File

Specifies the file which to write the data to.

If a robot is in the Direct (Minimal Execution) Design Mode, then Store In File will work only in the Debug mode and on the RoboServer.

If a robot is in the Full Execution (Smart Re-execution) Design Mode, then Store In File will work both in the Design and Debug modes.

File Name

Specifies the name and extension of the file.

Auto

With this option a file name is generated automatically using the following strategy:

  1. First the content disposition header of the response is inspected to see if it has a filename parameter and if so that name is used.

  2. Next the URL is inspected to see if it contains a file name and if so that name is used.

  3. If none of the above options succeed then an error is generated.

Value, Variable, Expression and Converters

The value can be specified in several ways using the Value Selector.

Directory

Specifies the directory where the file will be placed. The value can be specified in several ways using the Value Selector.

Create Directories

Specifies whether to create all the directories in the specified path that does not already exist. If the option is selected the directories are created. If the option is not selected the directories must exist and if not then an error is generated.

Override Strategy

Specifies a strategy for what to do when the selected file already exists.

Override File
Any existing file is replaced
Never Override File
Ensures that an existing file will never be replaced. If the file already exists then an error is generated.
Create a New File
Ensures that a new file is always created. If a file with the selected name already exists, a new unique file name is generated for the file. This new file name will be the originally selected file name with a serial number added to the end just before the extension, such as myData_1.dat where _1 was added to the original file name myData.dat.

Store Meta Data In:

Specify variables to be used to store meta data about the extracted data.

Content Type

This specifies an optional variable in which to store the content type of the data. For example, the content type could look like this for an image:

image/gif

and like this for a plain text:

text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

File Name

This specifies the optional variable in which to store the file name of the extracted data. If the data is saved to a file then the file name will be the full path of the file actually used. If the data is loaded into a variable then the file name will be the file name of the original resource (obtained from the URL or from the content disposition header for the response).

Options

The robot's options can be overridden with the step's own options. An option that is marked with an asterisk in the Options Dialog will override the one from the robot's configuration. All other options will be the same as specified for the robot.