Portal Infranet application-specific business object structure

WebSphere Business Integration Adapter business objects are hierarchical: parent business objects can contain child business objects, which can in turn contain child business objects, and so on. A cardinality 1 container occurs when an attribute in a parent business object references a single child object. A cardinality n container object occurs when an attribute in the parent business object references an array of child business objects.

The connector supports both cardinality 1 and cardinality n relationships between business objects.

Corresponding Portal Infranet objects to WebSphere Business Integration Adapter business objects

Infranet has the following container types:

You must define a WebSphere Business Integration Adapter Portal Infranet application-specific business object so that it maps to the Infranet flist for the corresponding storable object with all required attributes and relationships. The relationship between an flist and a business object is a one-to-one relationship.

During processing, the connector compares a business object to the corresponding flist for the Infranet object, and it throws an exception if the structures do not match. It is possible to define a WebSphere Business Integration Adapter business object that is a subset of the flist structure, but the converse is not supported.

For each Infranet container type, an application-specific business object is created as needed. Typically, a storable class becomes a top-level business object. A container of type substruct may become a cardinality 1 child business object, and a container of type array may become a cardinality n child business object. However, if a subcontainer is not important and the parent opcode is sufficient to manipulate the children, a child business object is not needed.

Figure 7 shows how the structure of a WebSphere Business Integration Adapter business object and an Infranet flists might correspond. See the Portal Infranet documentation for information on Infranet flists.


Structure business objects and flists

Figure 7. Structure business objects and flists

Figure 8 shows an example of a possible coordinating between the Infranet /account storable class and the Portal_Account hierarchical business object. The NameInfo array in the storable class becomes a cardinality n child business object in the top-level business object, and the Balances substruct becomes a cardinality 1 child business object.

Figure 8. Coordinating of a storable class to a WebSphere Business Integration Adapter business object

Coordinating of a storable class to a WebSphere Business Integration Adapter business object

Figure 9 shows a possible correspondence between the NameInfo array and the Portal_Contact child business object. The NameInfo array contains an array named Phones, which becomes a child business object whose parent is the Portal_Contact business object.

Figure 9. Corresponding of an flist array to a child business object

Corresponding of an flist array to a child business object

Note that specific attributes are needed for some flists and opcodes and not for others. In this case, an additional utility application-specific business object may be used as a verb parameter. This object does not correspond any persistent data; it describes only some mandatory fields for the flist. For more information on utility business objects, see "Connector utility business objects".

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