XMLUsing XML connector, the integration platform can read and write XML files. This connector writes multimode output. Therefore, Replace and Append target output modes are not applicable. For information about XML, see https://www.w3.org/XML/.
Connector Parts
Connector parts are the fields you configure to connect with a data source or target.
The settings that are available depend on the connector you select.
For a list of all parts for source connectors, see Specifying Connector, Parts, and Properties.
For a list of all parts for target connectors, see Specifying Connector, Parts, and Properties.
Property Options
The following table provides the properties that you may need to specify for your source or target data.
Property Name | S/T | Description |
|---|---|---|
AttrFields | S | XML Attributes are considered as fields. The default is true. |
DoctypeRecsOnly | S | Build records that exist below the DOCTYPE (root). The default is false. If you want to define only the records that actually appear in the root, change this option to true. Otherwise, Map Editor defines all possible records, including those below the root. |
IgnoredAttributes | S | A list of attributes that must be ignored when determining file structure. The default is e-dtype a-dtype. |
IgnoreWhite | S | Ignores "ignorable" blank space. The default is true. |
MaxQualifications | ST | Allows you to control how much recursion is allowed when using QualifiedRecordNames with nested objects. Default value is 0 to indicate no limit. |
QualifiedRecordNames | S | Qualifies record names with higher-level records. The default is false. Tip... Set this property to true to see the hierarchy of parent-child relationships of all record types, including different child record types with the same names. This property qualifies all the records with the hierarchical path from which the record is used. In other words, it concatenates the parent record names as it goes down the hierarchy, thereby creating unique record names. This allows you to get separate events for what is the same record, but under a different parent or set of parents. This is a source property only. However on the Target side, if you have a DTD, you can specify XML (DTD) Qualified Records in the Target Schema and select the DTD you want to use as a structure. |
RootDataElements | S | Reads all the data elements contained within the doctype element without creating records based on these elements. Note: When you set the RootDataElements property to true, the entire document is read into memory before any records are parsed. Sample document: <root> <data>Here is some data</data> <record> <data1>Here is some data</data1> <data2>Here is some data</data2> </record> </root> The preferred method is to read the data element as a record containing one field that is also named data. This way, the data can be read normally, without setting the RootDataElements property and without reading the entire document into memory. However, if you use a schema to read from an external DTD subset, the transformation XML schema may not be able to set the records up this way. In this case, setting the RootDataElements property causes the entire data set to be read into memory before it is parsed. This also allows the root record to contain a data field, which is populated with data. |
Schema | S | XML Schema that must be used. |
StripLeadingBlanks | S | For an XML source file, by default, Map Editor strips leading blanks in XML data. If you do not want to delete the leading blanks, select False. |
StripTrailingBlanks | S | For an XML source file, by default, Map Editor strips trailing blanks in XML data. If you do not want to delete the trailing blanks, select False. |
StyleSampleSize | S | Allows you to set the number of records (starting with record 1) that Map Editor analyzes to set a default width for each field in your source file. The default value for this option is 5000. You can change the value to any number between 1 and the total number of records in your source file. As the number gets larger, Map Editor requires more time to analyze the file, but it may be necessary to analyze every record to ensure no data is truncated. |
ElementRecords | S | All elements are considered as records. |
ByteOrder | T | Allows you to specify the byte order of Unicode (wide) characters. The options are: • Auto (default) - Determined by the architecture of your computer. • Little Endian- Generally used by Intel machines and DEC Alphas and places the least significant portion of a byte value in the left portion of the memory used to store the value. • Big Endian - Used by IBM 370 computers, Motorola microprocessors and most RISC-based systems and stores the values in the same order as the binary representation. |
DoctypeName | T | Doctype that Map Editor uses to create the target file. The default is recordset. |
DTDFile | T | Allows you to specify the name of the DTD file that Map Editor writes to or references when the target file is created. If this is left blank, the default file name is DOCNAME.DTD. |
Encoding | T | Allows you to select the type of encoding used with your source and target files. The default encoding is ISO-8859-1. Shift-JIS: This encoding is meaningful only to users with Japanese operating systems. |
Formatted | T | Select output with or without line breaks and indenting. If set to true (default), the output is written with the current line breaks and indenting. If set to false, the output is written with no line breaks or indenting in the body of the XML document. Tip... Large XML messages that include hierarchical formatting can greatly slow down near real-time processing. Use this property to write data strings without formatting to alleviate the formatting overhead issue. |
InternalSubset | T | Specify the internal DTD subset to write when referencing an external subset. To select an internal DTD, click the box and click once. Type the text of the internal DTD subset, without the '[' and ']' characters that encloses the internal subset in the DTD. |
ProcessingInstructions | T | Type a description of the processing instructions. These instructions are similar to the DTD declaration, since it instructs the XML parser about the methodology used to produce this XML instance. This is optional. These instructions are written after the XMLDecl (if it exists) and before the DTD file (if it exists). See the following example for the syntax. In the Processing Instructions example, Line 1 is the XMLDecl, Line 2 is the processing instructions and Line 3 is the DTD file: Example: ' With Processing Instructions?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"? <processing instructions> !DOCTYPE PurchaseOrder SYSTEM "x:\xml\orders\filename.dtd" ' Without Processing Instructions ?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"? !DOCTYPE PurchaseOrder SYSTEM "x:\xml\orders\filename.dtd" |
WriteDTD | T | Allows you to specify the type of DTD file to write when creating the target file. The available options are None, Internal, External, and Reference. The default is none. |
WriteEmpty | T | Indicates whether or not to write elements as empty fields. The default is true to write the elements as empty. Select False to suppress writing of elements as empty fields. |
WriteEmptyAttributes | T | Indicates whether or not to write attributes as empty fields. The default is true to write the attribute information in a tag. Select False to suppress writing the tag when it contains no data. |
WriteXMLDecl | T | The XMLDecl code lists the XML version number and the type of Encoding used in the XML file. To turn off writing the XMLDecl, select False. The default is true. |
RetainRecordOrder | T | The default is false. If set to true, record-type elements appear within their parent element in the order they were “put.” This has a couple of side-effects. When this property is true within a given element, all elements contained with a record data type appear after all elements that have any other data type. If this is not required, then the non-record elements must be transformed to record-type elements with only one field, using the same name as the record. This way, the order of all elements may be controlled. However, when this property is true, it is impossible to write an empty element of record data type. |
Footer | T | Allows providing text that will get written at the end of the document. |
UseEmptyTag | T | Specifies whether an empty element is written instead of a start element/end element tag pair. |
IsChildTextNode | T | Specifies whether to use a child node as text node if name of the field is the same as name of the record. If you have a record named R1, and it has fields R1 and R2, it specifies whether to write <R1>Text for R1 field <R2> Text for R2 field</R2> </R1> or <R1> <R1>Text for R1 field</R1> <R2>Test for R2 field</R2> </R1> |
Limitations
The following are the limitations for XML connector:
• Case Sensitivity in Tags - XML tagged fields are case sensitive, so it is legal to define record types with the same name as long as the case is different. (For example, addr, aDDr, ADDR and Addr would be considered four different tags.)
• Reserved Characters Not Supported in XML data fields:
– < use: <
– > use: >
– & use: &
– ' use: '
– " use: "
• Data vs. Presentation Format - Map Designer is a data transformation tool. If you try to use Map Designer to read an XML file that has been written with presentation in mind, rather than data content, the results may be undesirable.
• Validating DTD files - The DTD external source for the target file is used to create the output structure only. There is no validation of the target file against the DTD on the Target side, therefore you need to use another means to validate the file.
• Truncation Error Trapping - This connector does not support truncation error trapping. If the target field size is too small for the data written to it, the offending record may be skipped or incomplete data may be written to the target. The transformation does not stop due to a truncation error, as do connectors that have truncation support. The connectors with truncation support are Access 2.x/95, ASCII (Delimited), ASCII (Fixed), EDI, IBM DB2, MySQL, Oracle 7/8/Direct Path/SQL Loader, ODBC 3.x, and SQL Server 7/2000/BCP (Replace and Append modes only).
• Unions Not Supported - Map Designer does not read schemas with unions. If your schema contains unions, you must modify the schema to not include unions.
• Specifying DTD Requirements - In DTDs, it is not currently possible to specify the existence of an element as 1, 1 to many, 0 to 1, 0 to many, or to specify records as a "sequence of" or "choice of", etc. If you want to create a more "robust" DTD with these specifications, you must use a DTD authoring tool.
XML Support
Map Editor can read and write all dialects of XML, whether or not you have DTDs or schemas to define the file structure. You can use XML as your source or target connector and optionally specify any DTD or schema files in the Source or Target Schema box.
The following list does not include every XML flavor that Map Editor supports. You may be familiar with an industry standard that is not listed here. If the markup language uses the basic elements of standard XML markup, it is probably compatible with the XML metadata connector.
To find standards and specification information on any of the following markup languages, use the Web search engine:
• ACORD XML – Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development
• Adex – Document type for newspaper classified ads
• ADML – Astronomical Dataset Markup Language
• AdXML – Advertising for XML
• AIML – Astronomical Instrument Markup Language
• AnthroGlobe Schema – Social Sciences metadata format
• AppML – Application Markup Language
• BoleroXML – Bolero.net’s cross-industry XML standard
• BSML – Bioinformatic Sequence Markup Language
• CDF – Channel Definition Format
• CIDS – Component Information Dictionary Standard
• CIDX – Chemical Industry Data Exchange
• CML – Chemical Markup Language
• cXML – Commerce XML
• CoopML – Cooperation Markup Language
• CWMI – Common Warehouse Metamodel Interchange
• DAML+OIL – DARPA Markup Language
• DITA – Darwin Information Typing Architecture
• DocBook XML – DTD for books, computer documentation
• ebXML – Electronic Business Markup Language
• Eda XML – Electronic Design Automation XML
• esohXML – Environmental, Safety and Occupational Health XML
• FpML – Financial products Markup Language
• GDML – Geometry Description Mark-up Language
• GEML – Gene Expression Markup Language
• HumanML – Human Markup Language
• JSML – Jspeech Markup Language
• LMML – Learning Material Markup Language
• LOGML – Log Markup Language
• MathML – Mathematical Markup Language
• MCF – Meta Content Framework
• MoDL – Molecular Dynamics Language
• MusicXML – Music XML
• NetBeans XML Project – Open source XML editor for NetBeans Integrated Development Environment
• NewsML – NetFederation Showcase
• NITF – News Industry Text Format
• OMF – Weather Observation Definition Format
• OAGI – Open Applications Group
• OpenOffice.org XML Project – Sun Microsystem's XMLfile format used in the StarOffice suite
• OSD – Open Software Description Format
• PetroXML – Oil and Gas Field Operations DTD
• P3P – Platform for Privacy Preferences
• PMML – Predictive Model Markup Language
• QEL – Quotation Exchange Language
• rezML – XML DTD and style sheets for Resume and Job Listing structures
• SMBXML – Small and Medium Business XML
• SML – Spacecraft Markup Language
• TranXML – XML Transportation & Logistics
• UBL – Universal Business Language
• UGML – Unification Grammar Markup Language
• VCML – Value Chain Markup Language
• VIML – Virtual Instruments Markup Language
• VocML – Vocabulary Markup Language
• WSCI – Web Service Choreography Interface
• X3D – Extensible 3D
• XBEL – XML Bookmark Exchange Language
• XBRL – eXtensible Business Reporting Language
• XFRML – Extensible Financial Reporting Markup Language
• XGMML – Extensible Graph Markup and Modeling Language
• XLF – Extensible Logfile Format
• XML/EDI Group – XML and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) e‑business initiative
• XVRL – Extensible Value Resolution Language
XML DOM Support
XML DOM trees provide a way to determine and manipulate an XML file structure. Two XML data types are available in EZscript called DOMDocument and DOMNode. They can be used to create XML documents that are stored as a DOM tree. You can then access any node on the DOM tree, from the root element on up through the parent and child nodes.
For more information, see DOMNode Object Type and DOMDocument Object Type.
Last modified date: 02/01/2024