A get_categories message returns a role-specific list of categories that will be displayed as the roots of the Navigate Terms query tree and a list of categories in the Find Terms tool. No other information needs to be passed to the service.
User information is provided in the <message_header>; roles will be provided by the Project Management (PM) cell.

Get a List of Categories Associated with a User

The get_categories message is sent by the query tool to populate the root nodes and by the Find Terms tool to populate the list of categories available to a user.
The sequence of events is as follows (assumes max is not an issue)

The client requests a list of categories for a given user (get_categories)

Request type = default for Find Terms; core for Navigate Terms

The ONT server performs the following steps:
1. Get a list of roles available for this user from the PM cell (this also serves to validate the user)
2. Query the table of tables for the list of categories associated with this user's roles.

The client maps the list of tables to the appropriate usage, either to Navigate Terms root node or Find Terms category list.

GET_CATEGORIES Request Message

<message_body>
<get_categories type="default" blob="false" "hiddens="true"="" synonyms="false"/>
</message_body>

Possible "type" Settings

Value	Description	Example
default	Return table name / key pairs	Find Terms request
core	Return all data except system / date information	Navigate Terms request

Possible "blob" Settings

Value	Description	Example
false	Do not return data stored as a blob or clob	xml, comments
true	Return xml and comments

Possible "hiddens" Settings

Some categories exist but for various reasons are not displayed in the query tree.

Value	Description
false	Do not return hidden categories
true	Include hidden categories

Possible "synonyms" Settings

Some categories may be listed as synonyms for others.

Value	Description
false	Do not return data categorized as "synonym"
true	Include data categorized as "synonym"