Functions and Queries 

Once a connection to an EIS has been established, interaction between the client application and the back end can take place. Depending on the requirements of application to be using the connector, or for which you are writing a connector, you need to call or implement the appropriate interfaces of the connector framework.

For detailed reference information about the interfaces mentioned here, see the Javadocs for the portal and portal runtime APIs, which are located on the SAP Developer Network (SDN) at www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/javadocs.

Functions – IInteractionSpec

For executing functions, the connector framework IInteractionSpec is the main extension of the JCA Interaction. In addition to inheriting from the JCA interfaces, IinteractionSpec adds methods for obtaining metadata on all Interaction properties, getting and setting property values, and retrieving metadata on an InteractionSpec.

Object Model and Query Execution

A most important extention of the JCA standard in the connector framework is the ability to obtain an object model from the EIS, thus enabling query execution.

Obtaining an Object Model

Support for an object model, for example, tables in an RDBMS (relational database management system), demands the implementation of the related connector framework packages for exposing, hierarchically, the metadata on the business objects and business object relations. See the details in the Javadoc references of the primary packages:

com.sapportals.connector.metadata.primitives

com.sapportals.connector.metadata.operators

com.sapportals.connector.metadata.relations

Business objects are comprised of their attributes and relations. After defining the primitives and operations of the business objects, operations can be performed on them.

For further guidance, see  Execution of Queries during Runtime.