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Using Web Services › How to Call Web Services › How to Specify Special Characters

How to Specify Special Characters

If necessary, your web service calls can include special characters, as explained in the sections that follow.

Select Special Characters

Important! This section applies only if the special character does not function as a separator for the parameter in the web service call.

You can use the following XML character entities to specify special characters in web service calls:

For example, use the following entities to specify the business unit named Smith&Jones Hardware&Software Supplies:

Smith&Jones Hardware&Software Supplies

Special Characters Other Than Separator Characters

Important! This section applies only if the special character does not function as a separator for the parameter in the web service call.

To use CDATA tags to specify special characters in web service calls, use the following format:

<![CDATA[...]]>

For example, use the following expression to specify the business unit named Smith&Jones Hardware&Software Supplies:

<![CDATA[Smith&Jones Hardware&Software Supplies]]>

Separator Characters

The following special characters are typically used as separators:

If the special character functions as a separator for the parameter in the web service call, specify the special character as a dynamic variable, as follows:

  1. On the CA Service Catalog UI, enter the special character or characters in the field that you reference in the web service call. For example, in the Description field for the current business unit, enter !&.

    Note: Dynamic variable can also handle other special characters (for example, & and ,) although they are not separators for web service methods.

  2. In the web service call, replace the special character with the dynamic variable for the field of previous step. For example, $bu.description$.

The following sample web service call uses the example from the previous steps:

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:ser="http://services.soap.usm.ca.com">

   <soapenv:Header/>

   <soapenv:Body>

      <ser:saveRequestForm soapenv:encodingStyle="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">

         <sessionID xsi:type="xsd:string">e2f6b05b85247d35b4d7371edc9c6fe398fba60d</sessionID>

         <subscriptionDetailID xsi:type="xsd:int">10009</subscriptionDetailID>

         <formValuesData xsi:type="xsd:string">text1:M$bu.description$</formValuesData>

      </ser:saveRequestForm>

   </soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>