Hi All,
Just wanted to close this out for anyone who might reference this in the future. I've got this working by creating a Thing on the server side called "EdgeConnectorUtility" which has a service which creates things.
Create_Thing service code:
var thingName = ThingName;
var template = ThingTemplate;
var tag = Tag;
var description = Description;
//check if thing exists
try {
var exist = Things[thingName].name;
//If Thing exists, no exception will be thrown
throw new Error("Error creating " + thingName + ". Error: \""+thingName+"\" already exists");
} catch (err) {
// Thing does not exist, does the requested template exist
try {
var exist = ThingTemplates[template].name;
} catch (err){
throw new Error("Error creating " + thingName + ". Error: ThingTemplate \""+template+"\" doesn't exist");
}
//Test is see if thingName meets name rules
// Does it start with a letter
var code = thingName.charCodeAt(0);
if ( !(((code >= 65) && (code <= 90)) //lower case letters
|| ((code >= 97) && (code <= 122)) //uper case letters
|| (code == 95) //underscore
)){
throw new Error("Error creating " + thingName + ". Error: \""+thingName+"\" is not a valid name for a Thing");
} else {
for(var i = 1; i <thingName.length; i++)
{
var code = thingName.charCodeAt(i);
if ( !( ((code >= 65) && (code <= 90)) // lower case letters
|| ((code >= 97) && (code <= 122)) //upper case letters
|| (code == 95) // underscore
|| (code == 46) // period
|| ((code >= 48) && (code <=57)) //numbers
)){
throw new Error("Error creating " + thingName + ". Error: \""+thingName+"\" is not a valid name for a Thing");
}
}
}
// Apply a Tag if provided
var applyTag;
if( tag == undefined){
applyTag = false;
} else if( tag.length>0) {
try{
var params = {
name: tag /* STRING */
};
var exist = ModelTags["Applications"].GetVocabularyTerm(params);
} catch(err){
throw new Error("Error creating " + thingName + ". Error: \""+tag+"\" is not a term in Applications");
}
applyTag = true;
} else {
applyTag = false;
}
try {
var params = {
tags: undefined /* TAGS */,
thingTemplateName: template /* THINGTEMPLATENAME */,
description: description /* STRING */,
name: thingName /* STRING */
};
// no return
Resources["EntityServices"].CreateThing(params);
} catch(err) {
throw("Error creating " + thingName + ". Error:" + err.message);
}
Things[thingName].EnableThing();
Things[thingName].RestartThing();
///Apply the tag
if(applyTag)
{
var tags = new Array();
var newTag = {};
newTag.vocabulary = "Applications";
newTag.vocabularyTerm = tag;
tags.push(newTag);
var params = {
tags: tags /* TAGS */
};
// no return
Things[thingName].AddTags(params);
}
}
This service is then remotely called from my Java application via the SDK. This is the service definition for my virtual thing on the edge...
public void createThing(ConnectedThingClient client, String ThingName,String ThingTemplate, String Tag , String Description) throws Exception {
ValueCollection paramValues = new ValueCollection();
paramValues.put("ThingName", new StringPrimitive(ThingName));
paramValues.put("ThingTemplate", new StringPrimitive(ThingTemplate));
paramValues.put("Tag", new StringPrimitive(Tag));
paramValues.put("Description", new StringPrimitive(Description));
client.invokeService(ThingworxEntityTypes.Things, "EdgeConnectorUtility", "Create_Thing", paramValues, 5000);
}
And finally that service is called when I start my connection in my Thing client code. Here's the call here...
SimpleThing thing = new SimpleThing(thingName, "A basic virtual thing", client);
//Create a new RemoteThing. This is using the server-side service
//called "Create_Thing" in the "UtilityThing" Thing
thing.createThing(client, thingName, "RemoteThing", "", "This is a test using the virtual thing");
// Bind the VirtualThing to the client. This will tell the
// Platform that the RemoteThing 'Simple1' is now connected and
// that it is ready to receive requests.
client.bindThing(thing);
I hope this was helpful for anyone trying to set this up in the future.
