Information about a feature removed in 2017

[Yourgene]

Hello,

I'm currently migrating our old GLPI v0.83 & FusionInventory to the latest release, v9.5. This migration is easier and smoother than I thought :) But unfortunately, there's a feature now missing in the current version of FusionInventory.

On GLPI v0.83, we're using a lot the section called "Import Information" (Informations d'import in french) in Computer menu. It shows us, in a big array, all data collected by fusionInventory on a computer.

However, you removed this array in 2017, here. In the description of the PR, we can read :

Clean the import information tab :

• remove useless inventory PHP array

In the associated commit, following lines were removed from inc/rulematchedlog.class.php :

 if (is_object($itemtype)&& $itemtype->canView()) {
               $itemtype->displaySerializedInventory($item->getID());
 }

The problem is that this array contains data which is not displayed anywhere else. For example, SKUNUMBER of a BIOS. So we rely on this array to retrieve this information.

After few tests on GLPI 9.5, I noticed that a button appears in this section for computers which sent data to our updated GLPI. This button, called "Download Inventory file", allows us to download the now missing array, in XML format.

With all these informations, I have some questions :

• do you remember why this array was considered useless and was removed ?
• do you know why some data is only available in this array, and in the downloadable XML document ? Is it a configuration issue coming from us ?
• what do you plan to do with the column serialized_inventory in glpi_plugin_fusioninventory_inventorycomputercomputers ? It contains a blob, which is uncompressed then unserialized, and is displayed with displaySerializedInventory on GLPI 0.83. By reading your latest code, you still serialize and compress data in inventorycomputerinventory.class.php l.525, but then I don't undertand where exactly this data goes. Is this column still updated ?

We have some automatic processes which analyze the data stored in glpi_plugin_fusioninventory_inventorycomputercomputers.serialized_inventory. We would like to be sure that this column is still updated, and if it will be gone or not in the next releases. If it happens, we will be able to use the generated XML instead, but it will cost us some developement time.

Sorry for this long issue, I hope it is clear enough. If not, feel free to ask questions in english or french.

Thank you for your work on this amazing open source tool :) Best Regards, Vlad

[ddurieux]

Hi,

• I removed it because it's was more debug than display information.
• I must check and see how to add this information. I'm currently rework data transmitted, so I will check it. Sometimes we are limited by GLPI fileds defined, perhaps I can add additional fields ;)
• If I remember we use it with lock and unload fields, but not sure, must check too this part. Perhaps not used anymore and remove it in futures versions

[Yourgene]

Hi David, Thank you for your reply.

Here's my thoughts on what you said :

• We retrieve more unique information from this array than BIOS SKUNUMBER. I don't think that adding all corresponding fields is the best solution : there will be too much of them, and will spam user's screens who don't use them with unnecessary data. For us, if we have a way to retrieve all this data, from the xml or serialized_inventory column, we are fine.
• After few tests, this column is still updated : it's content changes after each update of a computer. In the code, the serialized data is passed as argument to inventorycomputerlib.updateComputer(), but this function is too big, I can't get how this function uses this serialized data.
• I confirm what you said, lock.class uses this serialized data.

Thank you for your help :) I think we can close this issue, if there's nothing more you want to add.

Best Regards, Vlad