Overview of Data Conversion Palette
The Data Conversion palette provides a mechanism for interacting with applications that produce COBOL, PL/I, or RPG data. Before you can use that data, TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks™ must parse it into XML for access by activities within a process definition.
The Data Conversion palette consists of the following activities:
- Copybook Resource — This shared configuration resource contains COBOL, PL/I, or RPG data structure, and generates an XML Schema Definition (XSD) schema for input and output mappings for activities.
- Parse Copybook Data Activity — This activity parses incoming data according to a specified Copybook resource. After parsing, the output XML data conforms to the XSD schema that corresponds to the Copybook resource, and other activities can access the data.
- Render Copybook Data Activity — This activity accepts XML data and produces data according to the COBOL, PL/I, or RPG data structure held in a specified Copybook resource. The formatted data can then be passed to an application.
Typically, COBOL, PL/I, or RPG applications communicate with other applications by way of a messaging service, such as IBM MQ Series or Java Messaging Service (JMS). These applications can also read data from or write data to a file. ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks can retrieve or send COBOL, PL/I, or RPG data by way of a messaging service or the file system.
The following figure illustrates how the Plug-in receives and sends COBOL data to and from a mainframe application or a COBOL data file.
