Data Type Compatibility

Use

The data types you use when defining data mappings are organized in type clusters. Each cluster contains semantically similar XSD types. One or more of the XSD types in a cluster defines the XSD type of the whole cluster.

At runtime, data mappings that you have defined are checked for compatibility based on these type clusters. When you define data mappings between data types contained in different clusters, you need to know to which type cluster the target data type belongs, and the type of the whole cluster. The following table lists the type clusters and the XSD types contained in a cluster. The emphasized types define the type of each cluster:

Type Name	XSD Types
finite-integer	xsd:byte, xsd:int xsd:long , xsd:short xsd:unsignedByte, xsd:unsignedInt, xsd:unsignedShort
infinite-integer	xsd:integer , xsd:negativeInteger, xsd:nonNegativeInteger, xsd:nonPositiveInteger, xsd:positiveInteger, xsd:unsignedLong
fuzzy-real	xsd:double , xsd:float
precise-real	xsd:decimal
text	xsd:ID, xsd:IDREF, xsd:language, xsd:Name, xsd:NCName, xsd:NMTOKEN, xsd:normalizedString, xsd:NOTATION, xsd:string , xsd:token, xsd:gDay, xsd:gMonth, xsd:gMonthDay, xsd:gYear, xsd:gYearMonth, xsd:ENTITY, xsd:duration, xsd:anyURI (?), QName (?)
boolean	xsd:boolean
binary	xsd:base64Binary , xsd:hexBinary
time	xsd:date, xsd:dateTime , xsd:time

Recommendation

We recommend that you check the data type compatibility according to the World Wide Web Consortium hierarchy too. It is possible even for data types contained in the same type cluster to cause problems during process execution if they are not compatible according to the hierarchy. The mapping editor does not show problems during process modeling, but depending on the concrete values, there might be problems at runtime.

For example, if you map xsd:long to xsd:int, the mapping editor does not show errors at design time. However, there might be a loss of precision in the result at runtime if the value of xsd:long is greater than the maximum value that xsd:int supports.

In other cases, an exception might be thrown at runtime if you try to assign an invalid value to a target node. For example, the expected value after the mapping is executed, is a date of type xsd:gYearMonth in "YYYY-MM" format. You provide at design time the value "2003-13" and the mapping editor does not show errors, because this is a valid string. However, you get an exception at runtime, because the month part is out of range.

For more information about the data type hierarchy, see http://www.w3.org Information published on non-SAP site .

More Information

Defining Data Mappings

Performing Complex Data Transformation with Functions