Standards Translation Service

How the Standards Translation Service Works

The Standards Translation service translates data in the following file formats and sets correlations to enable EDI tracking and document repair:

• Electronic data interchange (EDI)
• Positional
• Variable-length-delimited
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Structured Query Language (SQL)
• Japanese Center for Informatization of Industry (CII)

The Standards Translation service creates a translation report.

Implementing the Standards Translation Service

To implement the Standards Translation service, complete the following tasks:

1. Activate your license for the Standards Translation service.
2. If you are using a map that has a database on the output side, you must set up a connection to the database that contains the tables you want to access.
3. Create a Standards Translation service configuration.
4. Configure the Standards Translation service. See Configuring the Standards Translation Service.
5. Use the Standards Translation service in a business process.

Configuring the Standards Translation Service

To configure the Standards Translation service, you must specify settings for the following fields in the GPM:

Field

Description

Config

Name of the service configuration.

edi_input_decimal_separator

Character used to indicate the decimal point on the input side.

edi_input_element_delimiter

Character used to delimit elements (fields) on the input side.

edi_input_release_character

Character used to quote elements (fields) that contain the delimiter on the input side.

edi_input_repeating_element_delimiter

Character used to delimit repeating elements on the input side.

edi_input_segment_delimiter

Character used to delimit segments on the input side.

edi_input_sub_element_delimiter

Character used to delimit sub-elements on the input side.

edi_input_tag_delimiter

Character used to delimit tags on the input side.

edi_output_decimal_separator

Character used to indicate the decimal point on the output side.

edi_output_element_delimiter

Character used to delimit elements (fields) on the output side.

edi_output_release_character

Character used to quote elements (fields) that contain the delimiter on the output side.

edi_output_repeating_element_delimiter

Character used to delimit repeating elements on the output side.

edi_output_segment_delimiter

Character used to delimit segments on the output side.

edi_output_sub_element_delimiter

Character used to delimit sub-elements on the output side.

edi_output_tag_delimiter

Character used to delimit tags on the output side.

exhaust_input

Whether to execute the map until the Standards Translation service has translated all of the input. Valid values are Yes and No.

Note: If your map design is faulty (that is, if the data structure does not match the layout of the map), the data in the input file cannot be properly processed. If a segment is present in the input file it must be defined and active in the map and in the proper sequence. When the translator reads a segment, it tries to match it to the records in the map based on their tag values.

If exhaust_input is set to “Yes” the translator attempts to match each segment in the input file to a segment in the map, until it reaches the end of the input file. Conversely, if exhaust_input is set to “No,” the translator does not re-invoke the map to continue processing the remaining data in the input file.

map_name

Name of the map used for translation. The map must already be checked in to the IBM Sterling B2B Integrator and enabled.

Note: The Standards Translation service must be configured so the map_name parameter does not override what is specified in process data when performing document repair. See Business Process Example for Resending a Document for more information.

Additionally, you must specify an existing map that is already checked in to the IBM Sterling B2B Integrator, or the Standards Translation service generates a null pointer exception when the map it attempts to load doesn't exists.

output_report_to_process_data

Whether to output the report to process data. Valid values are:

• Yes: Output the report to process data.
• No: Do no output the report to process data.

output_to_process_data

Whether the output of the translation should be placed in the process data tree. The output must be XML. Valid values are Yes and No.

useStreams

Whether to support large files (streaming mode). Valid values are Yes (default), No, and blank (which uses default).

The default was changed with release 4.1.1, patch 1973. In versions previous to that, the service did not use document streaming by default.

validate_input

Validates the input to the input side of the map. Valid values are Yes and No.

validate_input_against_dtd

Validates the input to the DTD specified in the input document. Valid values are No validation, Validate using a DTD, and Validate using an XML schema.

validate_output

Validates the output to the output side of the map. Valid values are Yes and No.

Parameters Passed Through the Business Process Only

The following parameters can be passed through the business process using an Assign statement. Note that these parameters are not available through the GPM.

Parameter

Description

FromSchema

Used to enable manipulation of a database schema prefix within the SQL Table/View or SQL Statement of a map. This parameter is required when overriding schema names within one or more SQL Statement fields.

If the FromSchema and ToSchema parameters are not supplied, then no schema name substitution is performed.

Note: The schema search/replace is case-sensitive.

ToSchema

Used to enable manipulation of a database schema prefix within the SQL Table/View or SQL Statement of a map.

Note: The schema search/replace is case-sensitive.

If the FromSchema and ToSchema parameters are not supplied, then no schema name substitution is performed.

If the ToSchema parameter is supplied and contains a non-empty value, then any matching schema names are changed at translation time to use the supplied ToSchema schema value as follows:

• For a SQL Statement, only schema names that match the FromSchema value will be substituted. The FromSchema parameter is required—otherwise, no schema values are substituted. To match and substitute more than one value pair, the FromSchema and ToSchema parameter strings can be delimited with an @ sign. For example:

  
  FromSchema=”from1@from2”
  ToSchema=”to1@to2”
  

  In this example, any schema names matching “from1” are changed to “to1,” and any schema names matching “from2” are changed to “to2.”

For convenience, you can supply fewer ToSchema fragments than FromSchema fragments, and when there is no corresponding ToSchema fragment, the last fragment in the ToSchema string is used. For example:

FromSchema=”from1@from2@from3”
ToSchema=”to”

In this example, any schema names matching “from1,” “from2,” or “from3” will be changed to “to.”

• For a SQL Table/View, the FromSchema parameter is optional. If it is not supplied, all schema names are changed to the supplied ToSchema value. If it is supplied, the substitution occurs in the same way as it does for a SQL Statement. If the translator property sql.driver.useIdentifierQuoteString is set to True within customer_overrides.properties, then matching and substitution occurs with quoted schema names.
• If the ToSchema parameter is supplied but is empty (equal to ““ (two double quotation marks) or ‘' (two single quotation marks)), then any matching schema names contained in the map are removed at translation time.

Business Process Example for Resending a Document

When you will be repairing/resending a document, you must configure the Standards Translation service so the map_name parameter does not override what is specified in process data when performing document repair. Therefore, you should configure your Standards Translation service business process to look like the following for this scenario:

    ...
     <output message="Xout">
        <assign to="map_name">PosToTransactionReportRequest</assign>
        <assign to="." from="*"></assign>
      </output>
      ...

The resend functionality will then add a map_name parameter to process data, which will reference the pass-through map. This map name must be picked up by the Standards Translation service so it is important to amend your BPML so process data can override the parameter that is defined for the service.