I've got a service that exposes a method to update some values in a
record. Rather than several individual methods (setX, setY, setFoo,
etc.), I'm using a single method that allows the caller to update all
possible fields in one action (reduces network traffic). I would like to
allow the caller to control which parameters are acted upon though, and
am wondering if anyone has any recommendations in this regard.
For example, consider a method definition something like this:
UpdateRecord(long ID, String name, int age, String address);
I'd like the user to be able to selectively request updating only the
name or only the age or perhaps just the age and the address, etc. And
remember, I want to minimize traffic, so implementing setName(),
setAge(), setAddress() is not acceptable.
My current plan is to pass -1 for the numeric values I don't want
updated, and an empty string for the "String" parameters I don't want
updated. I'm fine with the numeric case, but for the Strings, it would
be nicer to pass null. Is this possible?
I suppose the other thing I could do is pass some sort of flag(s)
indicating which parameters are to be acted upon.
Any comments?
-Roy
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