Predefined and self-defining messages
Both predefined and self-defining messages are supported.
Each message that flows through an integration node has a specific structure that is meaningful to the applications that send or receive that message.
- Messages that you have modeled in the Integration Development perspective of the IBM® Integration Toolkit; these messages are referred to as predefined messages. A model-driven parser requires predefined messages.
- Messages that can be parsed without a model; these are called self-defining messages.
Predefined messages
When you create a message in the IBM Integration Toolkit, you define the fields (Elements) in the message, along with special field types that you might need, and specific values (Value Constraints) to which the fields might be restricted.
When you deploy a message set to an integration node, the message model is sent to the integration node in a form appropriate to the parser that is used to parse and write the message.
For information about the benefits of predefining messages, see Why model messages?
Self-defining messages
You can create and route messages that are self-defining. The best example of a self-defining message is an XML document.
You can also model self-defining messages in the IBM Integration Toolkit. However, you do not need to deploy these message sets to the integration nodes that support those message flows. For further information about why you might want to model these messages, see Why model messages?.