The Tagged/Delimited String format (TDS) is the physical representation of a message that has a number of data elements separated by tags and delimiters.
The TDS physical format is designed to model messages that consist of text strings, but it can also handle binary data. Examples of TDS messages are those that conform to the ACORD AL3, EDIFACT, HL7, SWIFT, or X12 standards. The TDS physical format allows a high degree of flexibility when defining message formats, and is not restricted to modeling specific industry standards; therefore, you can use the TDS format to model your own messages.
There are a number of features of text string messages that are common to many formats. This is an overview of the main features that are supported by the TDS physical format:
Some messages have a special character or string that separates each data value from the next. In the TDS format this is a known as a delimiter.
In formats that have a tag before each data value, the tag can be separated from its data value by a special character or string. In the TDS format this is known as a tag data separator.
A substructure can have a special character or string that indicates its start within the data. This is known in the TDS format as a group indicator.
A substructure can also have a special character or string that indicates its end in the data. In the TDS format, this is known as a group terminator.
A group indicator and group terminator can also be defined for the whole message. Group indicators and group terminators are optional for the message and each substructure.
The substructures within a message can use different types of data element separation and use different special characters. Therefore the TDS format allows you to define different types of data element separation and special characters for each complex type within the message.
The following diagram shows an example data message with each of its components labeled.