I have taken a brief look at
Biztalk to get some idea if DFDL V1 is capable of supporting the same formats.
I have more details but to avoid
containing developers I will only post a summary here.
Biztalk is an XML based integration
suite but has 2 non-XML assemblers/ disassemblers for non-XML data: Flat
File and EDI. The purpose of these is to transform from non-XML formats
to and from XML as data enters/leaves the system. All data within the system
is XML.
So far I have only look at the
Flat File assembler. The EDI assembler seems to be Covast.
Summary:
· A
file is defined by an optional header schema, a body schema and an optional
trailer schema.
· Schema
consists of root node(s), records (complex element), field elements and
field attributes.
But underlying schema contains complex types, sequences, etc.
· Flat
File properties are annotations and are allowed on schema, elements and
attributes.
· Some
properties set at schema level codepage, lengthUnits 'bytes' (usually characters)
· Defaults
set on schema. Local properties have value or 'use default'
· Flat
files are always text
· The
children of a record can all be fixed length or delimited
· prefix,
infix, postfix Child delimiter, Suppress
Trailing Delimiters, Preserve
Delimiter For Empty Data
· Repeating
Delimiter
· Records
can have Tags (initiators) but not terminators.
·
· No
restrictions on logical types. (inc gday, gtime, etc).
· Only
dates/times have a formatting pattern. Other types seem to have a default
representation.
· Alignment,
padding, minLength
· Escape
character, Wrap block (escape block), Restricted Characters
· Convert
all fields to upper/lower case or leave asis
|
|
The DFDL deficiencies seem to
be
- Lack of support of attributes.
- Limited set of logical
types.
- Upper/lower case conversion
I have only investigated the
flat file specific properties as these should be the representation properties.
There are other XML properties, such as restricting to parse only, that
may apply.
Regards
|
|
|
| Alan Powell
|
|
|
| Development - MQSeries, Message
Broker, ESB
|
| IBM Software Group, Application
and Integration Middleware Software
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