# MappingsType (Complex Type)

### Namespace: http://midpoint.evolveum.com/xml/ns/public/common/common-3

Generic set of mappings.

Item Summary
Name | Type | Multiplicity | Description
--- | --- | --- | ---
description | property string | [0,1] | Free-form textual description of the object.
documentation | property string | [0,1] | Technical documentation for a particular object or construct.
mapping | container MappingType | [0,-1] | Defines how a value of a property (or attribute) should be constructed.

- ### Items

  - #### description

    Flags: RAM,runtime

    Multiplicity: [0,1]

    Free-form textual description of the object. It is supposed to describe the object or a construct that it is attached to.

    This information may be presented to midPoint users, even to ordinary end users. For example role description may be presented to users when they are selecting roles to request. Therefore the description should be written in a language that the users can understand.

    Description is assumed to be a plan, non-formatted text. Amount of white space is considered insignificant. E.g. leading and trailing white space may be skipped, multiple spaces can be collapsed to one and so on.

  - #### documentation

    Flags: RAM,runtime

    Multiplicity: [0,1]

    Technical documentation for a particular object or construct.

    The purpose of this element is to document system configuration and behavior. The documentation will not be presented to end users. In fact, it will probably not be presented at all in midPoint user interface. This documentation element is supposed to be a part of the technical documentation of midPoint deployment. The tools than generate deployment configuration will look for these elements and combine them to compiled documentation document.

    AsciiDoc formatting is assumed for this element. Any leading or trailing whitespace is skipped. Indentation equivalent to he indentation of the first non-blank line of text is also skipped.

  - #### mapping

    Flags: RAM,runtime

    Multiplicity: [0,-1]

    Defines how a value of a property (or attribute) should be constructed. The value may be static or constructed as an result of evaluating an expression. This structure also defines a method how to merge several value construction definitions, how to behave if a property already has a value, etc. This is reusable data structure, used in schemaHandling, roles and it may also be used in may other places. Motivation: We need to construct attribute or property values on many places in midPoint. E.g. we need that in roles to generate dynamic account attribute values, we need that to define "templates" for identifiers and default values for attributes when creating a new account. We also need that to specify values when creating a new user (user templates). Having the same data structure for all of these cases may simplify the code, as it all can be handled by a generic library reused in many places through the system.