RE: RE: XML vs. Name Value pair

Today you have this name value pair standard for passing shipping
acknowledgements from one company to another. Tomorrow a big company like
CopyMax wants to do business with you and given the money they can bring
into a company they throw their weight around and tell you that you have to
conform to their name value pair standard.  Their standard follows the same
basic structure as yours except they name all of their name value pairs
differently. Instead of FromCredentialDomain they might just say FromId, for
example.  Now you have to either write another program or build a
translation procedure based on who sent you the request to adhere to their
request.

Another perspective. . .

What happens if the request contains multiple orders?  How do you say that
LineItem1 belongs to the first or second order?  Now you are going to have
to write some nifty parsing routines because parentage is going to be a pain
in the butt.  You will most likely have to build in a multiple nested array
structure within your name value pair names or qualify the heck out of your
names (&Order1_Item1=1234).

And all the above is assuming that you have others that think passing
information in name value pairs is actually a good intuitive idea, which is
unlikely in the web world today from the dealings I have had and read about.

Just some thoughts to consider I guess.  I know both you (Nathan) and Brad
write some pretty darn good code because I used to work with Brads daily and
I have seen some stuff you have posted on your site and in these forums.  Do
either of you have some examples of applications or customer experiences
where you needed to do what we are theorizing?

Aaron "XML Lover" Bartell ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan M. Andelin [mailto:nandelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 6:28 PM
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] RE: XML vs. Name Value pair 


> From: "Bartell, Aaron L. (TC)" <ALBartell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> I know you were being facetious but heck, I have the code
> so why not show it.

I guess if you're willing to show code to retrieve XML values, I ought to be
willing to transform the XML file into name value pairs:

&FromCredentialDomain=http://mowyourlawn.com
&FromCredentialType=ExternalCompany
&FromCredentialIdentity=Aaron
&FromCredentialSharedSecret=GREENEGGS
&ToCredentialDomain=http://mycompany.com
&ToCredentialType=MYID
&ToCredentialIdentity=54
&RequestDeploymentMode=Production
&BillingAccountNumber=700700
&OrderID=1234567AqEw
&ShipToAddressName=String
&ShipToPostalAddress=String
&ShipToDeliverTo=String
&ShipToStreet=String
&ShipToCity=String
&ShipToState=String
&ShipToPostalCode=String
&ShipToCountry=String
&ShipToEmail=String
&ShipToAreaOrCityCode=String
&ShipToPhoneNumber=0
&ShipToPhoneExtension=String
&LineItemQuantity=2
&LineItemLineNumber=2
&LineItemDescription=Text
&LineItemShortName=String
&LineItemExtraChargeQuantity=2
&LineItemExtraChargeDescription=Text
&LineItemExtraChargeShortName=String
&ItemID1SupplierPartId=String
&ItemID1Description=Text
&ItemID1ShortName=String
&ItemID1UnitOfMeasure=String
&ItemID2SupplierPartId=String
&ItemID2Description=Text
&ItemID2ShortName=String
&ItemID2UnitOfMeasure=String

Nathan M. Andelin
www.relational-data.com


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