Business object advanced properties

The advanced properties used for serialization purposes are automatically created with appropriate values when you create a business object or import a WSDL file with business objects. It is recommended that you leave these serialization values as they are. Only change a value if you are an advanced user who has a need to override a value. You should be very knowledgeable of all the standard XML elements as defined by the W3C's XML Schema. You should also have read the web services compatibility topic and the XSD generation pattern for business objects topic which are linked to at the end of this topic. These topics specify restrictions that apply to XML schemas interacting with this product and within this product.

A change will only affect this particular business object. If you had a process application with 100 business objects and you wanted to override an element such as the target namespace in the XML representation for all business objects then you would need to make 100 changes.

The customization is done by selecting and changing a property, saving that configuration of the business object and then clicking View XML Schema to see the XML Schema Definition (XSD) describing the XML representation of the business object. In this section, each property has a description and some contain examples of values that you might change using customization so that you understand the behavior of the using the customization tool.

Any change to serialization values should be tested. If you are using the business object in inbound or outbound web services, for example, this would mean testing those web services after your change. If you are using Integration Designer and your business object is used in an Advanced Integration service, you should test the Advanced Integration service.

Anonymous list type

This property sets whether the type of the wrapper is named or anonymous. The default value is false (named type). This property is available only when the parameter is a list and the wrap list property is true.

Anonymous type

Schemas can be built with sets of named types, for example, an InvoiceType. Then elements can be declared such as invoiceCanadian that reference those types. However, if you only need to reference a type once then there is considerable coding overhead. An anonymous type is used for these cases of a single reference.

To specify the value for an anonymous type, select Anonymous Type and select true or false. The default value is false. Anonymous types can cause difficulties as discussed in Web services hints and tips: avoid anonymous types. If you have read the XSD generation pattern for business objects topic you will also know that the true value is not honoured by the generator. Save your work. Click View XML Schema. Your output should be similar to the following sample.

<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:tns="http://EH" targetNamespace=http://EH" 
		elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
	<xs:element name="employee">
		<xs:complexType>
			<xs:sequence>        
				<xs:element name="employeeNumber" nillable="false" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" />
				<xs:element name="firstName" nillable="false" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" />
				<xs:element name="lastName" nillable="false" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" />
			</xs:sequence>
		</xs:complexType>
	</xs:element>
</xs:schema>

Element name

If the anonymous type property is set to true, this property places the anonymous type under an element with the specified name.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Element namespace

This property sets the namespace of the container element.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Exclude from XML

In most cases you would leave this setting in its default value of false, which will include your business object or parameter in the XML representation. However a type could define some instance fields that you might not want to serialize to an XML representation. For example, an instance field that has no equivalent in XML as it refers to an internal running process. You may also not want to serialize a lot of data when you know the web service could take some of the data and calculate values itself thus improving performance by reducing the data transferred.

To exclude a business object or parameter from the XML representation, select Exclude from XML and select true. Save your work. Click View XML Schema.

<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:tns="http://EH" targetNamespace=http://EH" 
		elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
	<xs:element name="employee">
		<xs:complexType>
			<xs:sequence>        
				<xs:element name="firstName" nillable="false" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" />
				<xs:element name="lastName" nillable="false" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" />
			</xs:sequence>
		</xs:complexType>
	</xs:element>
</xs:schema>

List item name

This property sets the name for a wrapped list item. This property is available only when the parameter is a list and the wrap list property is true.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change. The default value is the name of the type of the list elements.

List type name

This property sets the name of the complex type that encapsulates a wrapped list. The property is therefore valid only for a wrapped list that is not anonymous.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Maximum occurrences

This property sets the maximum number of times that the parameter occurs. The default value is 1. This property corresponds to maxOccurs in the XML schema.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Minimum occurrences

This property sets the minimum number of times that the parameter occurs. The default value is 0. This property corresponds to minOccurs in the XML schema.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Name

This property overrides the name of the serialized parameter with the name that you specify. The default value is the name of the parameter. This property corresponds to the name attribute in the XML schema.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Namespace

If you set the namespace for the business object, this property changes the target namespace. The target namespace defines explicitly the elements that belong to this instance of the namespace. You might want to change the target namespace if you imported a WSDL file and the target namespace for your business object was changed on importation. If you set the property for a parameter, it overrides the serialized element namespace for that parameter.

To rename the target namespace, select Namespace and enter the target namespace you prefer. For example: http://www.mycorporation.com/employees. Save your work. Click View XML Schema. Your output should be similar to the following sample.

<xs:schema targetNamespace="http://www.mycorporation.com/employees"
	elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
	<xs:complexType name="employee">
		<xs:sequence>
			<xs:element name="employeeNumber" type="xs:int" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
			<xs:element name="firstName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
			<xs:element name="lastName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
		</xs:sequence>
	</xs:complexType>
	<xs:element name="employee" type="tns:employee" />
</xs:schema>

Nillable

This property determines whether the parameter can have a null value.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Node Type

Nodes in an XML document can be defined as elements or attributes. A discussion of these types can be read in Principles of XML design: When to use elements versus attributes. In most cases, an element type is used which is the default, so you do not need to set it explicitly. However, you can set it to use an attribute.

To change the type to an attribute, select Node Type and select Attribute. Save your work. Click View XML Schema. Your output should be similar to the following sample.

<xs:schema targetNamespace="http://EH" elementFormDefault="qualified"
	attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
	<xs:complexType name="employee">
		<xs:sequence>
			<xs:element name="firstName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
			<xs:element name="lastName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
		</xs:sequence>
		<xs:attribute name="employeeNumber" type="xs:int" />
	</xs:complexType>
	<xs:element name="employee" type="tns:employee" />
</xs:schema>

Order

Order explicitly sets the order of the complex type's elements. Usually you would leave the order in the XML representation of the business object exactly as it is in the business object editor. However, you might want to change the order if the external web service changed and required the elements to be presented in a specific way.

To change the order of a complex type's elements, select each element and add a number to the Order field to specify the order you want in the XML representation. For example, suppose the order of an employee complex type is employeeNumber, firstName and lastName and you needed to change it to accommodate a web service order of lastName, firstName and then employeeNumber. You would set employeeNumber to 2, firstName to 1 and lastName to 0. Save your work. Click View XML Schema. Your output should be similar to the following sample.

<xs:schema targetNamespace="http://EH" elementFormDefault="qualified"
	attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
	<xs:complexType name="employee">
		<xs:sequence>
			<xs:element name="lastName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
			<xs:element name="firstName" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
			<xs:element name="employeeNumber" type="xs:int" minOccurs="0"
				maxOccurs="1" nillable="false" />
		</xs:sequence>
	</xs:complexType>
	<xs:element name="employee" type="tns:employee" />
</xs:schema>

Time zone

This property sets the time zone to use when serializing a date parameter. The property is not used in WSDL generation or schema creation but it is used to display date and time values. The default value is CLIENT. The other valid values are SERVER and UTC.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Type name

This property sets the qualified name of the type for the business object or parameter.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Type namespace

This property overrides the type namespace of the serialized XSD type with the namespace that you specify.

Use the default value unless it is strictly necessary to make a change.

Wrap list

This property determines whether to create an array wrapper type to contain a list. The default value is false, which means that the list is not wrapped. A list is an array and it is specified when List is selected as an attribute. You might use this field if you wanted to encapsulate the array. A wrapper type can be anonymous and the name of the list items can be overridden. If you have not selected List for a variable, this field and other fields with list in their name are disabled.