Miscellaneous

deserialize
is-null
serialize

This section describes miscellaneous functions that are available in expressions.

deserialize

Converts the text of a given string into an XML document.

Syntax

    deserialize(string)

Parameters

string is an XPath expression that evaluates to a string value.

Returns

An org.w3c.dom.Document value that represents the XML document.

is-null

Determines whether a node in the process data model exists.

In XPath, null values are represented as empty string values.

Syntax

    is-null(node)

Parameters

node is an XPath expression that evaluates to a node in the process data model.

Returns

A boolean value of true if the node does not exist, and false if the node exists.

Example

The name of a string variable that a process includes is stringVar. The following expression returns false:

is-null(/process_data/@stringVar)

serialize

Returns the string representation of given XML code. You can specify whether the string includes the XML declaration as the first line.

Syntax

    serialize(node,bOmitXML)

Parameters

A node and an optional boolean bOmitXML. node is an XPath expression that evaluates to a data location that stores XML data. If a value of true() is provided for bOmitXML, the first line in the string representation includes the XML declaration. If bOmitXML is false(), the XML declaration is not included. If bOmitXML is not specified, the XML declaration is provided.

Returns

A string that represents the contents of the given node.