The PeopleSoft “Document” technology is to be avoided at all costs. Do NOT use it to parse or encode JSON or XML. The code is literally junk. I have personally wasted months of my time on projects trying to make it work or supporting code where other developers or vendors have used it. It is too rigid and the PeopleCode API’s to interact with it are horrid.
What do I use instead? For JSON and XML, I would use the built in PeopleCode Classes for those types. See the related sections in this chapters. These offer complete flexibility to respond to dynamic or static data structures. You also have freedom to support and respond to subtle message differences posted by clients. There is a lot of nuance I am glossing over here.
Unfortunately for REST services you still have to use “primitive” Documents to parse Query String or Path parameters. So you cannot abandon it entirely but this is for a very small section of REST web services. To parse or encode any requests, use the other built in JSON or XML classes.
Chris Malek is a PeopleTools® Technical Consultant with over two decades of experience working on PeopleSoft enterprise software projects. He is available for consulting engagements.
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