Message types

[Michael A. Lowry]

The Automation Engine messages file uc.msl contains seven types of messages. Particularly if one uses the AE Java Application Interface, one is likely to encounter messages of all types. Only a few message types are documented (in the v11 User Guide).

In an incident back in 2014, I asked Automic Support for a description of the other message types. Here is a summary of the response I received.

Message type	Description
A	Cancel/Abort
C	Control — fixed messages and headlines
D	Control — messages for server
E	Error
I	Information
Q	Question
W	Warning

[Michael A. Lowry]

These types are defined the UC_MSGT table. You can list them using this query.

select * from UC_MSGT

[Michael A. Lowry]

The AE v12.1 Java Application Interface documentation for the MessageBox class — specifically, for the getType() method — now includes complete descriptions of the message types.

Type	Description
I	Info message. An info message means that there was no error.
E	Error message, if a message box with "E" is returned the request was not executed successfully.
A	Abort, same meaning as E (error).
W	Warning. In this case the response can be empty or truncated. A search which returns too many rows is one case where a message box with type "W" is returned in addition to the data.
Q	Question. In many cases this can be solved by re-sending the API request with different parameters. Example: Opening an object which has already been opened by another user returns U4006501 Object '&01' is being edited by user '&03' since '&02'. \Do you want to open it for read only? To open the object read only (= reply yes) the OpenObject request should be sent with the read only flag set.
C	Caption, this type is used for labels and menu items. It is normally not used in message boxes.