The following table describes the supported castings in each ABL parameter mode (INPUT and OUTPUT) between the ABL CHARACTER or LONGCHAR type and XML Schema.

Table 1. ABL data type conversion—CHARACTER or LONGCHAR
For this XML Schema type . . . In this ABL parameter mode . . . OpenEdge . . .
All XML Schema types where CHARACTER is the suggested ABL mapping (see XML Schema and ABL Data Type Mappings). INPUT1 Attempts to format the ABL string value to match the specified XML Schema type for inclusion in the SOAP request message.2
OUTPUT1 Converts the value from the formatting of the specified XML Schema type before copying it into the ABL parameter as a string value.2
All XML Schema types where CHARACTER or LONGCHAR is not the suggested ABL mapping (see XML Schema and ABL Data Type Mappings). INPUT1 Copies the string value directly, with no attempt to format it, for inclusion in the SOAP request message. OpenEdge performs minimal validation to ensure that the string contains data formatted according to the rules of the XML Schema type.
OUTPUT1 Copies the XML Schema value directly from the SOAP response message to the ABL parameter unchanged from its XML Schema format.
1 On both INPUT and OUTPUT parameters, OpenEdge translates the value between the cpinternal code page and Unicode.
2 The process of serializing and de-serializing CHARACTER data inserts and removes XML character references, for example, replacing "<" with "&lt;".