1. Business Services Development Methodology Guide
  2. Web Service Considerations for Data Types and Variable Names

Web Service Considerations for Data Types and Variable Names

A published business service class is the foundation for creating a web service. The web services description language (WSDL) is an XML-based language that describes a web service. The WSDL describes all methods of the published business service as well as the input and output value objects for these methods. All classes that make up the highest-level value object are included in the WSDL description. For example, for the Procurement Manager web service, the operations that the WSDL exposes are processPurchaseOrder, getPurchaseOrder, and processPurchaseOrderAcknowledge. All value object classes that are associated with these operations are defined in the WSDL as well.

All classes that are used within a published business service must have a unique name, which you should consider when you reuse value objects across published business services. Member variable names within the published business service value object class must be unique if they are of different object types. For example, the hierarchy of ProcessPurchaseOrder contains two classes representing financial data—one at the header level and one at the detail level. The header and detail are represented by unique classes because they are structured differently. Because both header and detail belong under the interface ProcessPurchaseOrder, the variable name referencing these object types must be unique; for example, financial and financialDetail.

The requirement for using unique variable names applies only to classes that have the same parent value object. You are not required to use unique variable names across value object classes. For example, both ProcessPurchaseOrder and ProcessPurchaseOrderAcknowledge have a header class, but the header classes are structured differently. Both of the member variables representing these classes can use the name header because they belong to different parent value objects. Classes that can be reused, such as PurchaseOrderKey, can have the same variable name across value objects.

The following examples show uniquely named classes that have member variables that are named the same:

Type

Member Variable Name

 
ProcessPurchaseOrder
  PurchaseOrderHeader
    PurchaseOrderKey 
      Integer 
      String 
      String 
    UserReservedData 
      String 
      Integer
      BigDecimal
      Calendar 
    PurchaseOrderFinancial 
    PurchaseOrderDetail 
      PurchaseOrderFinancialDetail

header
  purchaseOrderKey
    documentNumber
    documentCompany
    documentType
  userReservedData
    userReservedCode
    userReservedNumber
    userReservedAmount
    userReservedDate
  financial
  detail
    financialDetail

Type

Member Variable Name

 
ConfirmProcessPurchaseOrder
  ConfirmPurchaseOrderHeader
    PurchaseOrderKey
      Integer
      String
      String
    UserReservedData
      String
      Integer
      BigDecimal
      Calendar
    ConfirmPurchaseOrderFinancial
    ConfirmPurchaseOrderDetail
      ConfirmPurchaseOrderFinancialDetail

header 
  purchaseOrderKey
    documentNumber
    documentCompany
    documentType 
  userReservedData
    userReservedCode
    userReservedNumber
    userReservedAmount
    userReservedDate
  financial
  detail
    financialDetail

Type

Member Variable Name

 
ProcessPurchaseOrderAcknowledge
  PurchaseOrderAcknowledgeHeader
    PurchaseOrderKey
       Integer
       String
       String
    UserReservedData
       String
       Integer
       BigDecimal
       Calendar
    PurchaseOrderAcknowledgeFinancial
    PurchaseOrderAcknowledgeDetail
       PurchaseOrderAcknowledgeFinancialDetail

header
   purchaseOrderKey
      documentNumber
      documentCompany
      documentType 
   userReservedData
      userReservedCode
      userReservedNumber
      userReservedAmount
      userReservedDate
   financial
   detail
      financialDetail

Type

Member Variable Name

 
GetPurchaseOrder
  PurchaseOrderGetHeader
    PurchaseOrderKey
      Integer
      String
      String
    UserReservedData
      String
      Integer
      BigDecimal
      Calendar
    PurchaseOrderGetFinancial
    PurchaseOrderGetDetail
      PurchaseOrderGetFinancialDetail

purchaseOrderGetHeader
   purchaseOrderKey
      documentNumber
      documentCompany
      documentType 
   userReservedData
      userReservedCode
      userReservedNumber
      userReservedAmount
      userReservedDate
   financial
   detail
      financialDetail

Type

Member Variable Name

 
ShowPurchaseOrder
  PurchaseOrderShowHeader
    PurchaseOrderKey
      Integer
      String
      String
    UserReservedData
      String
      Integer
      BigDecimal
      Calendar
    PurchaseOrderShowFinancial
    PurchaseOrderShowDetail
      PurchaseOrderShowFinancialDetail

header
   purchaseOrderKey
      documentNumber
      documentCompany
      documentType 
   userReservedData
      userReservedCode
      userReservedNumber
      userReservedAmount
      userReservedDate
   financial
   detail
      financialDetail