BDL names and JSON element names
To identify elements, JSON standards use different format as Genero BDL variable names.
As in many other programming languages, Genero BDL variables are named with simple identifiers. These identifiers are case-insensitive, must start with a letter or underscore, and cannot contain special characters such as spaces.
By default, JSON/BDL element name matching is case-insensitive. For example, if the Genero BDL
record member is defined as CustNo
, and the JSON data string contains the
"custno":999
name/value pair, the value will be assigned. However, since Genero BDL
record member names are used as-is to write JSON data, is it strongly recommended to define the
Genero BDL records with the exact names used in JSON data string. Since JSON is case-sensitive, make
sure the names of the Genero BDL record members match exactly the names expected in the resulting
JSON data string: CustNo
will be different from custNo
.
JSON specifications allow you to define element
names with characters that cannot be used in Genero BDL identifiers. For example, a JSON element
name can be "customer.name"
or "customer:name"
. To work around
this issue, use the json_name
attribute when defining the BDL variable.
If the JSON element name cannot be defined as a Genero BDL variable identifier, it is possible to
define the BDL variable with the json_name
attribute, to specify the exact name of
the corresponding JSON element.
cust_name
will be mapped to the JSON
element "Customer
Name"
:DEFINE cust_name INTEGER ATTRIBUTES(json_name="Customer Name")
When converting JSON to BDL structures, elements in the JSON string that do not match an Genero BDL record member are ignored; no error is thrown if there is no corresponding Genero BDL member.