This topic applies only to the IBM Business Process Manager Advanced configuration.

JSON format properties and data type conversions

Properties and data type conversions of the JSON format are described.

Configurable properties

The following properties can be configured.

Table 1. Configurable JSON format properties
Property name	Explanation	Possible values	Default value
Encoding	This is the encoding that will be used in converting bytes to string and string to bytes wherever applicable.	Enum	All encodings

Data type conversions

JSON type system is more constrained than the XSD type system. JSON supports a value of type String, Number and Boolean. It does not support octal and hexdecimal values. The data handler will delegate all type conversions to the business object. Hence, all conversions that are supported by the business object will be supported by the data handler. We recommend that the type should match between the JSON data and the corresponding data objects but we are tolerant with certain formats as shown in the tables below.

JSON to DataObject conversions

Table 2. Conversion from JSON type to DataObject type
JSON/DataObject	String	Long	Double	boolean	Date, datetime
String	Valid	Valid if value is long	Valid if value is double	Valid if value is true or false	Valid if the value is a date
Long	Valid	Valid	Valid	Invalid	Valid if the value is a date
Double	Valid	Valid if value is long	Valid	Invalid	Invalid
Boolean	Valid	Invalid	Invalid	Valid	Invalid

For simple type lists, the types between the JSON data and the schema have to match.

For the base64Binary and hexBinary types, the business object will be converted to byte[], however this is not a JSON data supported type. JSONDataHandler will automatically convert the byte[] to a string based on the encoding information configured on the JSON format properties.

DataObject to JSON conversions

Table 3. DataObject type to JSON type
DataObject	JSON
String	String
Long	Long
Integer	Long
Double	Double
Float	Double
Boolean	Boolean
Date	String
Datetime	String