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In Grouper 2.2+ the main Grouper objects in the database (groups, folders, attribute definitions, attribute names) will be assigned unique integers.  These integers can be used, for instance, as UNIX GIDs.

The ID's are not used anywhere else in Grouper, so if you need to adjust them feel free, though the max index for an object type should never be more than the last index used in the grouper_table_index table (you can increment that).

Some reserved ID's can be stored in memory so that the table does not need to be accessed for each object creation.  By default non-GSH environments will reserve 10 at a time, and GSH will reserve 1 at a time.  If Grouper is bounced while idID's are reserved (common case), then those idID's will never be used.  Also, if transactions are rolled back, then id's will be wasted.  Hence the id's are generally sequential and each id is used, but there will be gaps and they will only be sequential per JVM (even if the reserved size is 1).

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You can configure a group whose members are allowed to assign index idID's on create in the grouper.properties.  If this config property is blank then anyone can assign index idID's on create

# group who can assign id index cols (also, wheel or root is allowed)
grouper.tableIndex.groupWhoCanAssignIdIndex = etc:canAssignIdIndex

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The Grouper 2.2 ddl will add large integer columns to the 4 tables: grouper_groups, grouper_stems, grouper_attribute_def, grouper_attribute_def_name.  The DDL will also assign idID's to the existing rows.  Note, this column is non-null for new deployments of grouper, feel free to add that constraint to upgrades.  There is also a grouper_table_index table with 4 rows which keeps track of which if the last index reserved.  There is a unique index on the id_index col so no rows can have the same index.

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Configure this in the grouper.properties

grouper.tableIndexidIndex.group.minIndex = 10000
grouper.tableIndexidIndex.stem.minIndex = 10000
grouper.tableIndexidIndex.attributeDef.minIndex = 10000
grouper.tableIndexidIndex.attributeDefName.minIndex = 10000

# verify that table indexes are set and the pointers are ok, incurs a bit of overhead to grouper startup
grouper.tableIndex.verifyOnStartup = true

# in different circumstances, retrieve a different number of IDs at once.
# if it is a system where the JVM is starting and stopping (e.g. GSH), then
# dont reserve that many at once 
grouper.tableIndex.reserveIdsGsh = 1
grouper.tableIndex.reserveIdsDefault = 10
grouper.tableIndex.reserveIdsLoader = 10
grouper.tableIndex.reserveIdsWs = 10
grouper.tableIndex.reserveIdsUi = 10

Startup

On grouper Grouper startup, two things are checked.  If there are rows with null id_indexes, they will be set to id's.  If the last reserved index is less than the max index for that object type, it will be updated.  If you do not want to perform these checks on startup, set this in the grouper.properties:

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There are API methods to lookup objects by ID index.  e.g. GroupFinder.findByIdIndexSecure(idIndex, exceptionIfNotFound, queryOptions).  Note, these methods cache by default, but you can stop the caching with queryOptions.  Also there are: StemFinder.findByIdIndexSecure(), AttributeDefFinder.findByIdIndexSecure(), AttributeDefNameFinder.findByIdIndexSecure()

The getIdIndex() method returns the assigned idIndex, for example 

gs = GrouperSession.startRootSession();
group_name = "aStem:aGroup"
g = GroupFinder.findByName(gs, group_name)
g.getIdIndex()

Web services

ID indexes are added to WS for clients 2.2+ (note, for SOAP you need the new 2.2 endpoint).  These examples are XML, though you could do the same thing with JSON, XHTML, or SOAP.

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<wsGroup>
        <name>aStem:newGroup5</name>
        <idIndex>12345</idIndex>
        ...
      </wsGroup>

sdf

Grouper client

groupSave: lookup a group by idIndex (-groupLookupIdIndex), see the idIndex created, and you can optionally specify the id index when creating a group (if allowed) (-idIndex)

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findAttributeDefNames: lookup attribute def names by id index of the attribute definition or namesdf