XMLPort - Execution/assignment order

bhalpin

Hi.

I'm writing an import XMLPort. The port is meant to read an xml file, compare the contents to shipping records in the database, and report differences. As it is not actually importing any data, the SourceType for all the elements is Text.

Here is the 'skeleton' of the Tag Names:

Data
	General
	Ship_From
	Ship_To
	Comments
	Lines
		Line
			Lots
				Lot

When writing & testing my validations I became confused by the apparent order that the text variable 'triggers' were executing. Some logging of the order revealed this:

OnPreXMLport
Data OnAfterAssignVariable
General OnAfterAssignVariable
Ship_From OnAfterAssignVariable
Ship_To OnAfterAssignVariable
Comments OnAfterAssignVariable
Lot OnAfterAssignVariable
Lots OnAfterAssignVariable
Line OnAfterAssignVariable
Lot OnAfterAssignVariable
Lots OnAfterAssignVariable
Line OnAfterAssignVariable
Lines OnAfterAssignVariable
Data OnAfterAssignVariable
OnPostXMLport

(The import data had two items.)

Seeing this I became 'meditative' :-k

Ok, if that's the execution order, I can handle it. In fact I prefer it. But I'm worried.

Can I count on this behaviour? ie: Is it documented anywhere?

The only remotely relevant mention about this I could find was in the Application Designers Guide (5.0) on page 462:

To avoid writing data directly to a table, you can apply a stylesheet to the XML document to ensure that the XML tag names are transferred in the correct order.

Probaly irrelevant, and certainly useless since that is the *only* occurance of the word 'stylesheet' in the entire file. (Another "state-secret" I guess. #-o )

Has anyone dealt with this and have any insight that can give me confidence in the behaviour I am seeing?

Thanks' in advance.

Bob