Setting Entry Values

Entries have methods to set the value.

When you put an entry value:

• if the entry didn't exist, a new entry is created and the value assigned
• if the entry already exists, the previous value is replaced

There are two methods:

• put: puts the provided value as is
• putConverted: converts the provided value and puts the converted value

put

Similarly, to get an entry, you first invoke an entry method and then invoke a put* method.

The following example sets an Integer value of 900 to the releaseYear entry:

document.entry("releaseYear").put(2016);

If you prefer compile safety to ensure the type you provide is indeed the one you intended, you may use one of the *Entry methods with the specific type to store. The following example uses intEntry to ensure an Integer value is provided:

Integer releaseYear = 2016;
// possibly more code in between
document.intEntry("releaseYear").put(releaseYear);

This will prevent accidentally using another type, such as Float when releaseYear was assigned.

putConverted

The putConverted method is used to automatically convert a value to the desired type, especially as String, which is very common in webMethods documents.

The following example stores releaseYear as a String. Note that the conversion from Integer to String is performed automatically.

Integer releaseYear = 2016;
// possibly more code in between
document.stringEntry("releaseYear").putConverted(releaseYear);

The only caveat with putConverted is that it's not compile-safe. If you pass a value that can't be converted, an exception is thrown at run time.