6.6.15 Linking Records

In order to link Records within a Block, some Records contain a “reference” element. Examples include the ReleaseReference Cell in the Records describing Releases and ResourceReference in Records describing Resources. These references must be unique within the Block they appear in. As a consequence, the combination of a Record’s BlockId and reference is unique within a Sales Report Message created in accordance with this standard.

To allow linking Usage/Revenue/Sales Records to the Summary Record they contribute, all Summary Records and Usage/Revenue/Sales Records contain a SummaryRecordId Cell.

Some records, such as the SalesTransactionID in the Sales/Usage Records need to be referenced from other messages such as an invoice message. In that case the combination of MessageId (as communicated in the HEAD Record), BlockId and reference are globally unique.

Other than references to a summary Summary Record, all references shall be pointing to a Record in the same Block.

When choosing a reference, users are strongly recommended to limit themselves to letters and digits, i.e. A-Z, a-z and 0-9.