My testing on 6.1 version showed that performance became a significant factor after a few hundred items (700-800 as I recall) were added using appendTo… services. Where performance drops off in a particular IS environment may vary.
This is due to how a list is managed. A list is implemented as a Java array. When another item is added to the list, a new array, original array length + 1, is allocated and the references from the original array are copied over.
I have not investigated whether this behavior has been changed in 6.5 or 7.x.
If the list is expected to grow beyond a few hundred entries, I would suggest using alternate facilities to create the list rather than using document list using appendToDocumentList. For example, you might use ArrayList (or other appropriate collection class–I’ve used LinkedList in the past) to build up the list, then convert it to a document list (a Java array) for subsequent use.
#Flow-and-Java-services#webMethods#Integration-Server-and-ESB