Using Partner WSDL to update record in Salesforce

Question

This question is more of a high level. An external system is trying to connect with my Salesforce app. The external system- ABC, is using the partner wsdl to update the record on Salesforce. ABC has the id of the record and field api name that needs to be updated. I see an operation named Update in partner WSDL and assume that ABC can call this operation to update the record.

How would ABC know to update a particular field of the record using the update operation? If I have added new field to Salesforce should I provide the partnerWSDL again to the end system? I think No.

Answer 1

Partner WSDL is loosely coupled so you do not need to provide the WSDL again .

However the third party code would still use string identifier for the field names that needs to be updated .So you will pass the name of the field that's newly created and third party code would incorporate it .

Here is a simple Java code that shows how the update call will be done

public void updateSample(String id) {
try {
  // Create an sObject of type contact
  SObject updateContact = new SObject();
  updateContact.setType("Contact");

  // Set the ID of the contact to update
  updateContact.setId(id);
  // Set the new field with a new value
  updateContact.setField("newField__c", "xyz");

  // Create another contact that will cause an error
  // because it has an invalid ID.
   SObject errorContact = new SObject();
   errorContact.setType("Contact");
  }catch(){

  }
}

For more detail examples check the guide