How to get inventory of a main repeater?

[jcierra]

The API in the Lutron Integration Protocol is easy to use, but the commands to query the database have eluded me. My wish would be to get the definitive set of integrationid, device, area, etc. from the main repeater to use in integration protocol commands.

Until now, we have reverse-engineered the dbxmlinfo file, but the schema is undocumented and so our work is unreliable. We would like to use something that we can depend on later.

How can you use the integration protocol to get the inventory?

[MisterC]

Launch the RA2 software and use Reports > Integration and save the file. It is a CSV file which you can view with your spreadsheet software, or any text editor.

[wkearney99]

I suspect that since we're in the '3rd party integration' subforum that he's working on an interface to a repeater. Which might likely mean it's not being set up as part of the initial rollout, but as an add-on, possibly by the homeowner or other party that might not have the Ra2 software. Thus wanting to do an export from the repeater is a pretty reasonable approach.

That and the format of the export, as I recall, was pretty sloppy. It didn't much lend itself to reimporting, at least not without of lot of needlessly tedious text handling.

Now, if they'd just document the dbxmlinfo format this would be a complete non-issue...

[MisterC]

I'm not sure its a two way street.

The RA2 software contains all the labels, groupings, scene names, etc. It pushes out the basic settings, per switch, per button, etc. to repeaters, and each device, but I don't believe the repeaters have the same data as the RA2 software. So its lossy.

[jcierra]

Yes, it would be so easy if the repeater gave access to a machine-readable version of the integration report — but that is the same as the undocumented (and unreliable) dbxmlinfo file. Our integration rarely has access to the RA2 software's contents.

The computer world is full of examples of APIs that provide inventories, such as "GetAllXXX" or "GetFirstXXX/GetNextXXX", easy to provide and easy to use. Many developers could use this inventory feature, and Lutron would know that from a quick glance through these forums. I have concluded that Lutron wishes not to give access to this information.

[wkearney99]

I have concluded that Lutron wishes not to give access to this information.

It's been my impression they don't so much as wish to keep it private but don't have a plan or personnel on it to make it happen.

[jcierra]

It's been my impression they don't so much as wish to keep it private but don't have a plan or personnel on it to make it happen.

Probably — I cannot guess their motivation. I also considered that they may wish to change the schema of the XML file, so publishing it now would make that change more difficult.

If Lutron does publish the schema or build it into the API, many of the questions in this forum would disappear.