You can not only process an XML input message that originates outside the AB Suite system and respond with an XML reply message but also process the XML messages in the reverse direction. That is, you can initiate the sending of an XML message to an external system from within the AB Suite system and receive an XML message in reply. You can do this by calling an external library passing an XML message as a parameter and receiving an XML reply message as the return value from that call.

To achieve this, you must add methods in an external library that takes a string parameter expected to contain an XML message. In the AB Suite model you can define the parameter to be a Serializable class. In your LDL logic you can populate an instance of this class and pass it as an argument in the external method call. The runtime infrastructure automatically serializes the argument into an XML message and the external library receives it as a string.

Similarly, let us consider you have a method in an external class that returns a string value containing an XML message as the return value of the method (or as the return value of an InOut or Out parameter). The Return variable of the method in the AB Suite model can be defined to be a Serializable class. In this case the XML message in the return value is automatically de-serialized to populate an instance of this class.

Refer to HowTo Process XML in AB Suite in the Documentation Libraries page on the Product Support Site for an example on calls made to an external library that sends and receives XML messages.