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General changes in behavior between Web services 2.0 and 2.5

This topic gives an overview of the general changes in behavior between Web Services 2.0 and Web Services 2.5 .

Parameters for passing multiple string values replaced by arrays
The parameters psDocIds, psLngs and psLngRefs used to take a comma-space-separated list of strings. However, this resulted in some problems. From release 2.5 of the API, all input and output parameters that used to take a comma-space-separated list of strings were changed to a parameter of type array. Examples:
  • DocumentObj.RetrieveMetadata: the string with the comma-space-separated list of Logical Identifiers (psDocIds) is replaced by an array of strings (pasLogicalIds)
  • PublicationOutput.RetrieveMetaDataByIshLngRefs: the string with the comma-space-separated list of unique identifiers of the language objects (psLngRefs) is replaced by an array of longs (palLngRefs)
No empty element is returned for fields which are not defined on an object
For example, the field resolution is only present on images. However, when executing a call (e.g. DocumentObj.Find) that returns multiple object types: maps, topics, library topics, including images, the field can be added to each object.
In Web Services 2.0 an empty element was returned for the field resolution on the non-image object types, topics, maps and library topics.
Although the field was returned in get methods, only fields that are defined for the object type can be set. To avoid confusion, an empty element for fields which are not defined on that object type is no longer returned with Web Services 2.5.
Only fields present in the requested metadata are returned
In Web Services 2.0 some additional standard fields (for example, DOC-LANGUAGE, VERSION) are always added to the metadata. In Web Services 2.5, only the fields that are present in the requested metadata, and that are defined on the object, are returned.
There is no Publication25.asmx
All methods to access all levels of the publication objects can be found in PublicationOutput25.
In Web Services 2.0, it was not possible to get the metadata of the lng level using the Publication20 methods and it was not possible to get only the metadata of publication or publication version object using the PublicationOutput20 methods.
PublicationOutput25 has the same functionality as DocumentObj25. Depending on the given parameters and the requested metadata the correct level is returned.
Numeric format

When the Metadata XML contains numbers, they must be supplied in the correct numeric format. Starting with Web Services 2.5, the numeric format only supports a decimal separator which must be a point, for example, 10000.25

Output parameters

Starting with release 10.0, the output parameters of the new methods are real output parameters and no longer in/out parameters.