Objects, Fields, and Field Data and the Partner WSDL

While the enterprise WSDL file defines all of the specific objects (such as Account, Contact, and other objects described in Standard Objects) in a Salesforce organization, the partner WSDL file defines a single, generic object (sObject) that represents all of the objects. For a particular object, its type is defined in the name field in the returned DescribeSObjectResult.

With the partner WSDL, your client application code handles fields as arrays of name-value pairs that represent the field data. When referring to the names of individual fields, use the value in its name field of the Field type in the DescribeSObjectResult.

Languages vary in the way they handle name-value pairs and map typed values to the primitive XML data types defined in SOAP messages. With the enterprise WSDL, the mapping is handled implicitly. With the partner WSDL, however, you need to manage values and data types when building client applications. When specifying the value of a particular field, be sure to use a value that is valid for the field (range, format, and data type). Make sure that you understand the mapping between data types in your programming language with XML primitive data types (one of the values in the SOAPType field of the Field type in the DescribeSObjectResult).