Serving Files from Logical Directories

Summary of Steps

1. Place a DIR directory control record in a DIRMAP file to identify a logical directory.
2. Create the DIRMAP file identified in the previous step.
3. Place FILE directory control records in the DIRMAP file to identify the files you want in the logical directory.

Steps in Detail

1. Place a DIR directory control record in a DIRMAP file to identify a logical directory.

   ---

   Note: If you serve files from an SFS or BFS directory and do not currently use DIRMAP files, create a VMWEBSRV DIRMAP file (for BFS, the file is VMWEBSRV.DIRMAP) to hold the DIR records that identify the first level of logical directories.

   ---

   For example, you have files that pertain to football:

   • FTBLOVER HTML
   • FTBLRULE HTML

   To identify a FOOTBALL logical directory, add the following DIR directory control record to the VMWEBSRV DIRMAP file:

   DIR FOOTBALL FOOTBALL

2. Create the DIRMAP file identified in the previous step.

   Continuing the example from Step 1, create a FOOTBALL DIRMAP file.

3. Place FILE directory control records in the DIRMAP file to identify the files you want in the logical directory.

   Continuing the example from Steps 1 and 2, to place the FTBLOVER HTML and FTBLRULE HTML files in the FOOTBALL logical directory, add the following FILE directory control records to the FOOTBALL DIRMAP file:

   FILE OVERVIEW.HTML FTBLOVER HTML
FILE RULES.HTML FTBLRULE HTML

   With the FOOTBALL logical directory, the URLs to access the files are:

   • http://www.comp.com/football/overview.html
   • http://www.comp.com/football/rules.html

   Without the FOOTBALL logical directory, the URLs to access the files are:

   • http://www.comp.com/ftblover.html
   • http://www.comp.com/ftblrule.html

   When you use logical directories, you can make the URLs required to access your data more meaningful and easier to remember.

Using Multiple Levels of Directories

VM:Webgateway makes no restriction on the number of levels of logical directories you can use.

The following example shows how to create two levels of logical directories on a minidisk. The first level has the FOOTBALL logical directory. The second level has the logical directory COLLEGE that contains the files CHANGES.HTML (CMS fileid, CHANGES HTML) and SCORES (CMS fileid, SCORES HTML).

         VMWEBSRV DIRMAP                  
         ----------------------           
   +---- DIR FOOTBALL  FOOTBALL           
   |                                      
   +---->FOOTBALL DIRMAP               
         -------------------------------- 
   +---- DIR COLLEGE  COLLEGE             
   |     FILE OVERVIEW.HTML FTBLOVER HTML 
   |     FILE RULES.HTML    FTBLRULE HTML 
   |                                      
   +---->COLLEGE DIRMAP                   
         -------------------------------- 
         FILE CHANGES.HTML  CHANGES  HTML 
         FILE SCORES        SCORES   HTML 
 

The URLs to access the files in the COLLEGE DIRMAP file are:

http://www.comp.com/football/college/change.html
http://www.comp.com/football/college/scores