In general, you implement one method for each synchronization event. These methods must be public. If they are private, the MobiLink server cannot use them and fails to recognize that they exist.

The names of the methods are not important, as long as the names match the names specified in the ml_script table in the consolidated database. In the examples included in the documentation, however, the method names are the same as those of the MobiLink events because this naming convention makes the Java code easier to read.

The signature of your method should match the signature of the script for that event, except that you can truncate the parameter list if you do not need the values of parameters at the end of the list. You should accept only the parameters you need, because overhead is associated with passing the parameters.

You cannot, however, overload the methods. Only one method prototype per class may appear in the ml_script system table.

Registering methods

After creating a method, you must register it. Registering the method creates a reference to the method in the MobiLink system tables on the consolidated database, so that the method is called when the event occurs. You register methods in the same way that you add synchronization scripts, except instead of adding the entire SQL script to the MobiLink system table, you add only the method name.

See Adding and deleting scripts.

Return values

Methods called for a SQL-based upload or download must return a valid SQL language statement. The return type of these methods must be java.lang.String. No other return types are allowed.

The return type of all other scripts must either be java.lang.String or void. No other types are allowed. If the return type is a string and not null, the MobiLink server assumes that the string contains a valid SQL statement and executes this statement in the consolidated database as it would an ordinary SQL-language synchronization script. If a method ordinarily returns a string but does not want to execute a SQL statement against the database upon its return, it can return null.