Re: Returning Multiple Records from Web Service

Hi Shannon,

This question has been coming up a lot lately when I talk with customers, 
so I wrote up a technical note on it.  It describes how to do this such 
that you don't end up return a bunch of empty records in the response SOAP 
message from the Web service and also discusses a couple design 
alternatives. 

I'll send you a copy off-list.  If anyone else is interested please email 
me directly. 

Thanks.

Don Yantzi
Technical Lead
WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries
IBM Toronto Lab





"Shannon O'Donnell" <shannon.odonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
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02/02/2007 12:21 PM
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[WDSCI-L] Returning Multiple Records from Web Service






What is the best practice for returning multiple records through a web
service that uses a java program call bean to talk to an RPG program?

 

Let's say I have a file with 2000 records in it and my user wants to do
a lookup which would retrieve 387 of those records and then display them
in their web page.

 

When I return the records to the web service from my RPG program, would
it be best for me to manually build the XML for each record and field

 

<record>

<field>field1</field>

  <desc>desc 1</desc>

</record>

 

<record>

<field>field2</field>

  <desc>desc 2</desc>

</record>

 

<record>

<field>field3</field>

  <desc>desc 3</desc>

</record>

 

And then in my interface I'd describe a multiple occurrence data
structure that gets returned...

 

Or would it be best to group them all like, 

 

"field1,field1-Desc;file2,field2-Desc;field3,field3-Desc; 

 

And again, use a multiple occurrence data structure...

 

I'm just not sure how to describe this in my java program call bean for
multiple records.

 

How does everyone else do it?

 

Thanks!

 

Shannon O'Donnell