Generate complete package.xml for Org

Question

I'm using the Force.com Migration Tool for Ant more and more. I currently have several organizations at different API versions (release previews, for example). Is there a way to generate a complete package.xml file for an organization that would include (1) all of the metadata components that use '*' to subscribe to all items, in addition to (2) listing all specific items for component type where that's required (standard objects, reports, email templates, etc.)

I know that the Force.com IDE does this as part of the "Select Metadata" wizard, so I could use that process to refresh each of my projects, but I'm looking for something that could be included (for example) in an Ant script, to help me keep my organization snapshots up-to-date.

Thanks!

Answer 1

It'll take some heavy lifting, but you can do this with the metadata API or ANT.

Step 1 Figure out what components are available

Use a describeMetadata() call to get a list of all metadata component types that are available for retrieval. It'll return the name to use in your package.xml, as well as info about if it's stored in a folder. Unfortunately it does NOT return details about whether the particular metadata component type can be retrieved via the wildcard attribute. You might consider storing a list in your program of what can use the wildcard, or you could just specify the exact name for every instance of each metadata component type.

The Salesforce ANT library also has a a describeMetadata target that returns the same result in text form.

In both cases you can optionally pass in an API version.

Step 2 Retrieve folders for in-folder metadata types

For metadata that is stored in folders you'll need to know the folder before you can get a list of what metadata is in the org. You can do this with a listMetadata() call (supposedly you can do a retrieve call to, but that hasn't worked for me).

To list out the folders, add a "Folder" suffix to the foldered-metadata type, i.e. "DashboardFolder" for dashboard folders or "ReportFolder" for report folders, to get the metadata type and then do a listMetadata() call.

The Salesforce ANT library also has a listMetadata target that returns the same results in text form.

Step 3 List out components for each metadata type

For each component type returned in Step 1 that's not foldered use a listMetadata() call to get a list of all instances of that component in the target org. You could skip this for components that support wildcards, assuming you're storing which support that somewhere.

For foldered metadata types you'll need to make a list call for each folder.

Step 4 Build out your package.xml

At this point you'll have everything you'll need to build out a package.xml.

Step 5 Retrieve your data

Use your package.xml do to a retrieve.

Gotchas Max Retrieval Limit

One thing you'll likely run into if you're doing this with any client orgs is the max retrieval limit. To work around this you can have an intermediate process chunk your package.xml into smaller mini-retrieves. This is normally an issue when orgs have a lot of reports. This gist shows an example done with ruby (warning: ugly code!).

Answer 2

If you are using vs code there is an extention to build package.xml using point and click

Salesforce Package.xml generator extension for VS Code

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VignaeshRamA.sfdx-package-xml-generator

Affiliation: I am the developer of this free to use extension

Answer 3

Here's a ready made Java JAR that you point to an org (through properties files), tell it what metadata types to go and look for, and it then goes off and inventories your org and builds a package.xml for you based on the types you've specified. Even has a handy-dandy feature allowing you to skip certain things based on a regular expression, so you can easily e.g. exclude managed packages, or some custom namespaces (say you prefix a bunch of things that belong together with CRM_) from the generated package.

So a comandline like this:

java -jar PackageBuilder.jar [-o <parameter file1>,<parameterfile2>,...] [-u <SF username>] [-p <SF password>] [-s <SF url>] [-a <apiversion>] [-mi <metadataType1>,<metadataType2>,...] [-sp <pattern1>,<pattern2>,...] [-d <destinationpath>] [-v]

will spit out a nice up-to-date package.xml for your ANT pleasure.

Disclaimer: I'm the author. Code may be dodgy in places where it deals with metadata types I haven't spent a lot of time testing with.

Answer 4

Try this online service to generate complete package.xml: https://packagebuilder.herokuapp.com

Answer 5

The package.xml that is used in the Force.com IDE is the same as the one you would use in the Force.com migration tool. So if you refresh one of your projects with everything, you should be able to grab that package.xml and massage it to what you want and then use it to perform a retrieve.

You can open it in the Force.com ide itself and copy/paste the xml to another file. Or if you just want to grab it from the file system, simply find your Eclipse workspace. From there navigate to your project folder's src directory. You will then find the package.xml there.