Abstract: A system and method for handling set structured data through a computer network is disclosed. A client computer sends a request to retrieve or set data maintained by a Web application server. The client request is in a text format. The Web application server uses the action requested by the client and the data item being requested to determine a method name. Java reflection is used to invoke the method to retrieve or set the data value. In addition, text data received from the client computer is converted to the appropriate data type before storing in the data store, such as an LDAP directory. Data retrieved from the data store is also converted from the data item's data type to a Java text string that is included in an HTML Web page and returned to the client for display to the user.

Abstract: A system and method for handling set structured data through a computer network is disclosed. A client computer sends a request to retrieve or set data maintained by a Web application server. The client request is in a text format. The Web application server uses the action requested by the client and the data item being requested to determine a method name. Java reflection is used to invoke the method to retrieve or set the data value. In addition, text data received from the client computer is converted to the appropriate data type before storing in the data store, such as an LDAP directory. Data retrieved from the data store is also converted from the data item's data type to a Java text string that is included in an HTML Web page and returned to the client for display to the user.