What’s the trick to build a JSON string

[Rennur]

Exposing data is not an issue. Like Jaymer said you are only exposing it to yourself (URL_CONTENTS call can always use localhost).

This confirms it for me it's the best solution.

LIMITATION:
Exposing parent BOs with child references, the child references are generated in JSON within each instance of parent BOs.
But if you expose child BOs that have a parent BO, only the first child BO has a JSON reference to the Parent BO, the rest of the child instances do not have this JSON ref.

In the JSON example below there are 4 child refs, 2 per parent BO called Job.

{
"response": [

CHILD BOs for the first parent Job
{
"Status": "PENDING",
"Name": "Item 1",
"Job": {
"Status": "BOOKED",
"JobReference": "5921409"
},
"JobReference": "5921409",
"ItemId": "5921410"
},

(Second child reference missing Job JSON ref)
{
"Status": "PENDING",
"Name": "Item 2",
"JobReference": "5921409",
"ItemId": "5921411"
},

CHILD BOs for the second parent Job
{
"Status": "PENDING",
"Name": "Item 3",
"Job": {
"Status": "BOOKED",
"JobReference": "5922318"
},
"JobReference": "5922318",
"ItemId": "5922319"
},
(Again, the second child reference missing Job JSON ref)
{
"Status": "PENDING",
"Name": "item 4",
"JobReference": "5922318",
"ItemId": "5922320"
}
]
}

Support, is this normal behaviour that only the first child instance BO has the JSON ref to the parent BO?

[aware_support]

No, it's not normal. If you are sure that you have done everything correctly please send your BSV to us and let us know how to reproduce the problem in this BSV

[Rennur]

BSV emailed.

[Rennur]

if you expose child BOs that have a parent BO, only the first child BO has a JSON reference to the Parent BO, the rest of the child instances do not have this JSON ref.

Identified as a bug, fixed in the next build.

[Jaymer]

Rennur
Thanks for putting some effort into this.
I think thats amazing that it will output the JSON array for child recs.
And if you use the Data Transfer Object described by Ben (which I just did for an output to Excel) (and NOW that data could be exposed to anyone via REST), then you can build child recs for exactly whats required and Voila (hopefully).
I'll wait until that next build and then I'll dig into this method.
thx

[Rennur]

Thanks for putting some effort into this.

No probs, REST is now essential part of the app dev world.

[Rennur]

Aware IM Service will not work if there are more than 1000 records in the database found by the Implementing Process. It will return a blank result.
In other words, the URL_CONTENTS will not get the JSON parameter from the service when there are more than 1000 records in the database for that BO.

Normally you wouldn't need to generate such a long string.

The FIND function in the implementing process should have the IN BATCHES OF suffix in the query to ensure you receive a JSON response, and to ensure you can generate the JSON string for any amount of records.

[johntalbott]

What should the process look like?

FIND Objects specified in Service Reply
FIND BO storing the JSON string
BO.JSON=URL_CONTENTS('REST URL ADDRESS')

What's the use case for this approach?

[Rennur]

I was testing exposing a REST service in version 6.0 and consuming the service in 8.1.

[johntalbott]

I was testing exposing a REST service in version 6.0 and consuming the service in 8.1.

Thanks

[Rennur]

aware_support wrote:

There is a LOT of parameters you may want to provide to the function that converts a business object to JSON. This is because there are quite a few subtleties in how a JSON string can be generated from an Aware IM record (or records) - how empty values are encoded, how names are mapped etc. All of this has already been done when you expose a REST-ful service and define its response to have JSON format. Therefore, the official suggestion is to use a service and URL_CONTENTS function to do this

Convert any Reference Attribute to JSON and store the JSON string using advance script feature.
Since you can apply query filters on references, you can convert any required data into a JSON string.

Table to JSON
(No BSV to share just yet)