CkSpider Java Reference Documentation

CkSpider

Current Version: 9.5.0.97

Chilkat Spider web crawler object.

Object Creation

CkSpider obj = new CkSpider();

Properties

AbortCurrent
boolean get_AbortCurrent();
void put_AbortCurrent(boolean newVal);
Introduced in version 9.5.0.58

When set to true, causes the currently running method to abort. Methods that always finish quickly (i.e.have no length file operations or network communications) are not affected. If no method is running, then this property is automatically reset to false when the next method is called. When the abort occurs, this property is reset to false. Both synchronous and asynchronous method calls can be aborted. (A synchronous method call could be aborted by setting this property from a separate thread.)

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AvoidHttps
boolean get_AvoidHttps();
void put_AvoidHttps(boolean newVal);

If set the 1 (true) the spider will avoid all HTTPS URLs. The default is 0 (false).

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CacheDir
void get_CacheDir(CkString str);
String cacheDir();
void put_CacheDir(String newVal);

Specifies a cache directory to use for spidering. If either of the FetchFromCache or UpdateCache properties are true, this is the location of the cache to be used. Note: the Internet Explorer, Netscape, and FireFox caches are completely separate from the Chilkat Spider cache directory. You should specify a new and empty directory.

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ChopAtQuery
boolean get_ChopAtQuery();
void put_ChopAtQuery(boolean newVal);

If equal to 1 (true), then the query portion of all URLs are automatically removed when adding to the unspidered list. The default value is 0 (false).

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ConnectTimeout
int get_ConnectTimeout();
void put_ConnectTimeout(int newVal);

The maximum number of seconds to wait while connecting to an HTTP server.

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DebugLogFilePath
void get_DebugLogFilePath(CkString str);
String debugLogFilePath();
void put_DebugLogFilePath(String newVal);

If set to a file path, causes each Chilkat method or property call to automatically append it's LastErrorText to the specified log file. The information is appended such that if a hang or crash occurs, it is possible to see the context in which the problem occurred, as well as a history of all Chilkat calls up to the point of the problem. The VerboseLogging property can be set to provide more detailed information.

This property is typically used for debugging the rare cases where a Chilkat method call hangs or generates an exception that halts program execution (i.e. crashes). A hang or crash should generally never happen. The typical causes of a hang are:

  1. a timeout related property was set to 0 to explicitly indicate that an infinite timeout is desired,
  2. the hang is actually a hang within an event callback (i.e. it is a hang within the application code), or
  3. there is an internal problem (bug) in the Chilkat code that causes the hang.

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Domain
void get_Domain(CkString str);
String domain();

The domain name that is being spidered. This is the domain previously set in the Initialize method.

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FetchFromCache
boolean get_FetchFromCache();
void put_FetchFromCache(boolean newVal);

If equal to 1 (true) then pages are fetched from cache when possible. If 0, the cache is ignored. The default value is 1. Regardless, if no CacheDir is set then the cache is not used.

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FinalRedirectUrl
void get_FinalRedirectUrl(CkString str);
String finalRedirectUrl();
Introduced in version 9.5.0.85

If the last URL crawled was redirected (as indicated by the WasRedirected property), this property will contain the final redirect URL.

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HeartbeatMs
int get_HeartbeatMs();
void put_HeartbeatMs(int newVal);

The number of milliseconds between each AbortCheck event callback. The AbortCheck callback allows an application to abort any method call prior to completion. If HeartbeatMs is 0 (the default), no AbortCheck event callbacks will fire.

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LastErrorHtml
void get_LastErrorHtml(CkString str);
String lastErrorHtml();

Provides information in HTML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

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LastErrorText
void get_LastErrorText(CkString str);
String lastErrorText();

Provides information in plain-text format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

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LastErrorXml
void get_LastErrorXml(CkString str);
String lastErrorXml();

Provides information in XML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

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LastFromCache
boolean get_LastFromCache();

Equal to 1 if the last page spidered was fetched from the cache. Otherwise equal to 0.

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LastHtml
void get_LastHtml(CkString str);
String lastHtml();

The HTML text of the last paged fetched by the spider.

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LastHtmlDescription
void get_LastHtmlDescription(CkString str);
String lastHtmlDescription();

The HTML META description from the last page fetched by the spider.

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LastHtmlKeywords
void get_LastHtmlKeywords(CkString str);
String lastHtmlKeywords();

The HTML META keywords from the last page fetched by the spider.

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LastHtmlTitle
void get_LastHtmlTitle(CkString str);
String lastHtmlTitle();

The HTML title from the last page fetched by the spider.

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LastMethodSuccess
boolean get_LastMethodSuccess();
void put_LastMethodSuccess(boolean newVal);

Indicate whether the last method call succeeded or failed. A value of true indicates success, a value of false indicates failure. This property is automatically set for method calls. It is not modified by property accesses. The property is automatically set to indicate success for the following types of method calls:

  • Any method that returns a string.
  • Any method returning a Chilkat object, binary bytes, or a date/time.
  • Any method returning a standard boolean status value where success = true and failure = false.
  • Any method returning an integer where failure is defined by a return value less than zero.

Note: Methods that do not fit the above requirements will always set this property equal to true. For example, a method that returns no value (such as a "void" in C++) will technically always succeed.

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LastModDateStr
void get_LastModDateStr(CkString str);
String lastModDateStr();

The last modification date/time from the last page fetched by the spider.

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LastUrl
void get_LastUrl(CkString str);
String lastUrl();

The URL of the last page spidered.

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MaxResponseSize
int get_MaxResponseSize();
void put_MaxResponseSize(int newVal);

The maximum HTTP response size allowed. The spider will automatically fail any pages larger than this size. The default value is 250,000 bytes.

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MaxUrlLen
int get_MaxUrlLen();
void put_MaxUrlLen(int newVal);

The maximum URL length allowed. URLs longer than this are not added to the unspidered list. The default value is 200.

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NumAvoidPatterns
int get_NumAvoidPatterns();

The number of avoid patterns previously set by calling AddAvoidPattern.

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NumFailed
int get_NumFailed();

The number of URLs in the object's failed URL list.

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NumOutboundLinks
int get_NumOutboundLinks();

The number of URLs in the object's outbound links URL list.

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NumSpidered
int get_NumSpidered();

The number of URLs in the object's already-spidered URL list.

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NumUnspidered
int get_NumUnspidered();

The number of URLs in the object's unspidered URL list.

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PreferIpv6
boolean get_PreferIpv6();
void put_PreferIpv6(boolean newVal);

If true, then use IPv6 over IPv4 when both are supported for a particular domain. The default value of this property is false, which will choose IPv4 over IPv6.

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ProxyDomain
void get_ProxyDomain(CkString str);
String proxyDomain();
void put_ProxyDomain(String newVal);

The domain name of a proxy host if an HTTP proxy is used.

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ProxyLogin
void get_ProxyLogin(CkString str);
String proxyLogin();
void put_ProxyLogin(String newVal);

If an HTTP proxy is used and it requires authentication, this property specifies the HTTP proxy login.

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ProxyPassword
void get_ProxyPassword(CkString str);
String proxyPassword();
void put_ProxyPassword(String newVal);

If an HTTP proxy is used and it requires authentication, this property specifies the HTTP proxy password.

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ProxyPort
int get_ProxyPort();
void put_ProxyPort(int newVal);

The port number of a proxy server if an HTTP proxy is used.

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ReadTimeout
int get_ReadTimeout();
void put_ReadTimeout(int newVal);

The maximum number of seconds to wait when reading from an HTTP server.

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UpdateCache
boolean get_UpdateCache();
void put_UpdateCache(boolean newVal);

If equal to 1 (true) then pages saved to the cache. If 0, the cache is ignored. The default value is 1. Regardless, if no CacheDir is set then the cache is not used.

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UserAgent
void get_UserAgent(CkString str);
String userAgent();
void put_UserAgent(String newVal);

The value of the HTTP user-agent header field to be sent with HTTP requests. This can be set to any desired value, but be aware that some websites may reject requests from unknown user agents.

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VerboseLogging
boolean get_VerboseLogging();
void put_VerboseLogging(boolean newVal);

If set to true, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. The default value is false. Verbose logging should only be used for debugging. The potentially large quantity of logged information may adversely affect peformance.

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Version
void get_Version(CkString str);
String version();

Version of the component/library, such as "9.5.0.94"

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WasRedirected
boolean get_WasRedirected();
Introduced in version 9.5.0.85

Indicates whether the last URL crawled was redirected. (true = yes, false = no)

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WindDownCount
int get_WindDownCount();
void put_WindDownCount(int newVal);

The "wind-down" phase begins when this number of URLs has been spidered. When in the wind-down phase, no new URLs are added to the unspidered list. The default value is 0 which means that there is NO wind-down phase.

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Methods

AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern
void AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern(String pattern);

Adds a wildcarded pattern to prevent collecting matching outbound link URLs. For example, if "*google*" is added, then any outbound links containing the word "google" will be ignored. The "*" character matches zero or more of any character.

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AddAvoidPattern
void AddAvoidPattern(String pattern);

Adds a wildcarded pattern to prevent spidering matching URLs. For example, if "*register*" is added, then any url containing the word "register" is not spidered. The "*" character matches zero or more of any character.

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AddMustMatchPattern
void AddMustMatchPattern(String pattern);

Adds a wildcarded pattern to limit spidering to only URLs that match the pattern. For example, if "*/products/*" is added, then only URLs containing "/products/" are spidered. This is helpful for only spidering a portion of a website. The "*" character matches zero or more of any character.

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AddUnspidered
void AddUnspidered(String url);

To begin spidering you must call this method one or more times to provide starting points. It adds a single URL to the object's internal queue of URLs to be spidered.

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CanonicalizeUrl
boolean CanonicalizeUrl(String url, CkString outStr);
String canonicalizeUrl(String url);

Canonicalizes a URL by doing the following:

  • Drops username/password if present.
  • Drops fragment if present.
  • Converts domain to lowercase.
  • Removes port 80 or 443
  • Remove default.asp, index.html, index.htm, default.html, index.htm, default.htm, index.php, index.asp, default.php, .cfm, .aspx, ,php3, .pl, .cgi, .txt, .shtml, .phtml
  • Remove www. from the domain if present.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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ClearFailedUrls
void ClearFailedUrls();

Clears the object's internal list of URLs that could not be downloaded.

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ClearOutboundLinks
void ClearOutboundLinks();

Clears the object's internal list of outbound URLs that will automatically accumulate while spidering.

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ClearSpideredUrls
void ClearSpideredUrls();

Clears the object's internal list of already-spidered URLs that will automatically accumulate while spidering.

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CrawlNext
boolean CrawlNext();

Crawls the next URL in the internal list of unspidered URLs. The URL is moved from the unspidered list to the spidered list. Any new links within the same domain and not yet spidered are added to the unspidered list. (providing that they do not match "avoid" patterns, etc.) Any new outbound links are added to the outbound URL list. If successful, the HTML of the downloaded page is available in the LastHtml property. If there are no more URLs left unspidered, the method returns false. Information about the URL crawled is available in the properties LastUrl, LastFromCache, and LastModDate.

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CrawlNextAsync (Android™) (Java)
CkTask CrawlNextAsync();

Creates an asynchronous task to call the CrawlNext method with the arguments provided. (Async methods are available starting in Chilkat v9.5.0.52.)

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns nil on failure

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FetchRobotsText
boolean FetchRobotsText(CkString outStr);
String fetchRobotsText();

Returns the contents of the robots.txt file from the domain being crawled. This spider object will not crawl URLs excluded by robots.txt. If you believe the spider is not behaving correctly, please notify us at support@chilkatsoft.com and provide information detailing a case that allows us to reproduce the problem.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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FetchRobotsTextAsync (Android™) (Java)
CkTask FetchRobotsTextAsync();

Creates an asynchronous task to call the FetchRobotsText method with the arguments provided. (Async methods are available starting in Chilkat v9.5.0.52.)

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns nil on failure

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GetAvoidPattern
boolean GetAvoidPattern(int index, CkString outStr);
String getAvoidPattern(int index);

Returns the Nth avoid pattern previously added by calling AddAvoidPattern. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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GetBaseDomain
boolean GetBaseDomain(String domain, CkString outStr);
String getBaseDomain(String domain);

Returns the second-level + top-level domain of the domain. For example, if domain is "xyz.example.com", this returns "example.com". For some domains, such as "xyz.example.co.uk", the top 3 levels are returned, such as "example.co.uk".

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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GetFailedUrl
boolean GetFailedUrl(int index, CkString outStr);
String getFailedUrl(int index);

Returns the Nth URL in the failed URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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GetOutboundLink
boolean GetOutboundLink(int index, CkString outStr);
String getOutboundLink(int index);

Returns the Nth URL in the outbound link URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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GetSpideredUrl
boolean GetSpideredUrl(int index, CkString outStr);
String getSpideredUrl(int index);

Returns the Nth URL in the already-spidered URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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GetUnspideredUrl
boolean GetUnspideredUrl(int index, CkString outStr);
String getUnspideredUrl(int index);

Returns the Nth URL in the unspidered URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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GetUrlDomain
boolean GetUrlDomain(String url, CkString outStr);
String getUrlDomain(String url);

Returns the domain name part of a URL. For example, if the URL is "https://www.chilkatsoft.com/test.asp", then "www.chilkatsoft.com" is returned.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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Initialize
void Initialize(String domain);

Initializes the object to begin spidering a domain. Calling Initialize clears any patterns added via the AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern, AddAvoidPattern, and AddMustMatchPattern methods. The domain name passed to this method is what is returned by the Domain property. The spider only crawls URLs within the same domain.

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LoadTaskCaller
boolean LoadTaskCaller(CkTask task);
Introduced in version 9.5.0.80

Loads the caller of the task's async method.

Returns true for success, false for failure.

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RecrawlLast
boolean RecrawlLast();

Re-crawls the last URL spidered. This helpful when cookies set in a previous page load cause the page to be loaded differently the next time.

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RecrawlLastAsync (Android™) (Java)
CkTask RecrawlLastAsync();

Creates an asynchronous task to call the RecrawlLast method with the arguments provided. (Async methods are available starting in Chilkat v9.5.0.52.)

Note: Async method event callbacks happen in the background thread. Accessing and updating UI elements existing in the main thread may require special considerations.

Returns nil on failure

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SkipUnspidered
void SkipUnspidered(int index);

Moves a URL from the unspidered list to the spidered list. This allows an application to skip a specific URL.

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SleepMs
void SleepMs(int numMilliseconds);

Suspends the execution of the current thread until the time-out interval elapses.

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Events

Chilkat supports event callbacks in Java (including Android) starting in version 9.5.0.52. To implement an event callback, your application would define and implement a class that derives from CkBaseProgress. Your application can implement methods to override some or all of the default/empty method implementations of the CkBaseProgress base class.

For example:

// Install an event callback handler to get progress events.
MyBaseProgress spiderProgress = new MyBaseProgress();
http.put_EventCallbackObject(spiderProgress);

MyBaseProgress example:

import com.chilkatsoft.CkBaseProgress;
import com.chilkatsoft.CkTask;

public class MyBaseProgress extends CkBaseProgress 
{	
  public boolean AbortCheck()
  {
    System.out.println("AbortCheck");
    // Return true to abort, false to allow the method to continue.
    return false;
  }
  	
  // pctDone is a value from 0 to 100
  // (it is actually value from 0 to the PercentDoneScale property setting)
  public boolean PercentDone(int pctDone)
  {
    System.out.println(pctDone);
    // Return true to abort, false to allow the method to continue.
    // Note: A PercentDone event is the equivalent of an AbortCheck.  
    // When PercentDone events are frequently firing, AbortCheck events are suppressed.
    // AbortCheck events will fire when the time between PercentDone events is longer 
    // than the HeartbeatMs property setting.
    return false;
  }
  
  public void ProgressInfo(String name, String value)
  {
    System.out.println(name + ": " + value);
  }
  
  public void TaskCompleted(CkTask task)
  {
     System.out.println("task completed!");
  }
  
}
AbortCheck
public boolean AbortCheck();

Provides the opportunity for a method call to be aborted. The AbortCheck event is fired periodically based on the value of the HeartbeatMs property. If HeartbeatMs is 0, then no AbortCheck events will fire. As an example, to fire 5 AbortCheck events per second, set the HeartbeatMs property equal to 200. Return true to abort; return false to continue (not abort)

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PercentDone
public boolean PercentDone(int pctDone);

Provides the percentage completed for any method that involves network communications or time-consuming processing (assuming it is a method where a percentage completion can be measured). This event is only fired when it is possible to know a percentage completion, and when it makes sense to express the operation as a percentage completed. The pctDone argument will have a value from 1 to 100. For operations (Chilkat method calls) that complete very quickly, the number of PercentDone callbacks will vary, but the final callback should have a value of 100. For long running operations, no more than one callback per percentage point will occur (for example: 1, 2, 3, ... 98, 99, 100).

The PercentDone callback counts as an AbortCheck event. For method calls that complete quickly such that PercentDone events fire, it may be that AbortCheck events don't fire because the opportunity to abort is already provided in the PercentDone callback. For time consuming operations, where the amount of time between PercentDone callbacks are long, AbortCheck callbacks may be used to allow for the operation to be aborted in a more responsive manner.

Return true to abort; return false to continue (not abort)

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ProgressInfo
public void ProgressInfo(String name, String value);

A general name/value event that provides information about what is happening during a method call. To find out what information is available, write code to handle this event and log the name/value pairs. Most are self-explanatory.

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TaskCompleted
public void TaskCompleted(CkTask task);

Called in the background thread when an asynchronous task completes.

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