Parameter XML Grammar

Following is described the global structure of the XML stream returned by the GET and PUT .../parameters requests. This XML stream contains the parameters and their properties, such as the expected answers.

Note See examples of XML streams in Getting the List of Parameters and Getting the Refresh Parameters.
<parameters>
    <parameter type="context|prompt" optional="true|false" dpId="String">
        <id>An identifier</id>
        <technicalName>A technical name</technicalName>
        <name>A name</name>
        <description>A description</description
        <answer type="Text|Numeric|Date|DateTime|Unknown" constrained="true|false">   
            <info cardinality="Single|Multiple">
                LOV
                [DefaultValues|PreviousValues]
            </info>
            Values
        </answer>
    </parameter>
    ... 
</parameters>

The following table describes the <parameter> attributes:

Attribute Description
type The parameter type:
  • context represents a context
  • prompt represents an @prompt or an object parameter
optional A mandatory Boolean attribute that defines whether the parameter is optional. Is false if type="context".
dpId A mandatory attribute that defines the data provider identifier used for this parameter

The following <parameter> children describe a parameter:

Child Element Description
<id> Parameter identifier as an integer. The web service generates it automatically.
<technicalName> Technical name of the parameter as a string (optional)
<name> Prompt question in the user locale
<description> Description of the parameter as a string (optional)
<answer> The expected answer

The following table describes the <answer> attributes:

Attribute Description
type The answer type. The unknown type is not supposed to be returned.
constrained A Boolean attribute that defines if the user can type a new value for the parameter (constrained="false") or if the user must select only the values from the associated list of values (constrained="true")
Restriction constrained="true" has no effect on the parameter behavior in the present release. The user can always type a new value for the parameter.

The following <answer> children describe the answer to a parameter:

Child Element Description
<info> Contains the list of values associated with the parameter (LOV). Its cardinality represents the number of values expected by the parameter (one value or several values). Also contains the default values or previous values for information.
Values The values associated with the parameter.

In the GET .../parameters call result, they are either DefaultValues or PreviousValues.

Remember PreviousValues are only returned by the Web Intelligence RESTful Web Service SDK.