General Tab
The fields under the Parse Copybook Data activity General tab are described here.
| Field | Literal Value/Module Property? | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Name | No | The activity’s label name in the process definition. |
| Copybook Resource | No | The Copybook Resource that defines the schema for parsing incoming data into XML. |
| Big Endian | Yes | The byte order of the incoming data. Check this field to specify the byte order as Big Endian, for example, for IBM mainframes and certain UNIX platforms. Uncheck this field if the byte order is Little Endian, for example, for Microsoft Windows and certain UNIX platforms. |
| Character Set | Yes | The character-set encoding for the string values in the incoming data except for COBOL items with
DISPLAY-1, also affecting the parsing of zoned decimal values. For details, see
Handling of Zoned Decimal Items.
You can choose either single-byte or multibyte character sets from the selector dialog. Multibyte character sets are marked with an asterisk for easy identification. Warning: Multibyte character sets are allowed for COBOL copybooks only. Although you can choose those sets, choosing one in conjunction with a PL/I or RPG copybook causes an error. For details on how character sets work in the Plug-in, see Latin Normalization in Character Sets. |
| Character Set for DISPLAY-1 Items | Yes | The character-set encoding for the string values in the incoming data for COBOL items with USAGE DISPLAY-1. This field is available only if you select a COBOL copybook.
You can choose either single-byte or multibyte character sets from the selector dialog. Multibyte character sets are marked with an asterisk for easy identification. For details on how character sets work in the Plug-in, see Latin Normalization in Character Sets. |
| Multiple Records | Yes | The field that instructs the activity to repeat the copybook parsing until the end of the input data is reached and to generate multiple output elements. |
| Records Delimiter | Yes | The field that specifies the delimiter between records in the input data in case of a checked Multiple Records field. You can specify the following valid delimiter types:
None — Specifies that a new record begins directly after the last record ends. No characters separate the records. New Line — Specifies that a new-line character separates the records in the input. Carriage Return — Specifies that a carriage-return character separates the records in the input. Carriage Return/Line Feed (Windows) — Specifies that a carriage-return character followed by a line-feed character separates the records in the input. When specifying this field by Module or Process properties, you can use the following values:
Note that the previous values are not case-sensitive. |
| Trim Whitespaces from String Values | Yes | The field that specifies whether to trim white spaces of the text-converted values after parsing. Here are the white-space characters and their descriptions:
\u0009 – Horizontal tabulation \u000A – Line feed \u000B – Vertical tabulation \u000C – Form feed \u000D – Carriage return \u001C – File separator \u001D – Group separator \u001E – Record separator \u001F – Unit separator \u0000 – Null character Note: Internally, the Plug-in calls a trim() method of the Java class String. This field also affects how the Plug-in matches the REDEFINE control field values. For details, see Configuration of Data-Description Entries for a REDEFINES group Or Union. |
| Empty Nodes | Yes | The field that specifies whether to preserve empty elements in the output XML. If you uncheck this field, the Plug-in deletes the empty elements from the XML data, thus reducing the size of the XML output. |
| Input Type | No | The field that specifies the type of input for this activity. The type can be either of the following: |
| Return Remaining Bytes | No | Enable returning of the remainder of the input base64Binary. If selected, the output of the activity contains a field remainingBytes. This field contains the tailing portion of the input base64Binary that has not been processed by this activity. See Connecting Multiple Parse Activities. |
| Allow Incomplete Records | Yes | This field specifies whether the activity requires that the input contains enough input data for an entire copybook layout (record) or incomplete layouts are tolerated. This field is only available for COBOL copybooks.
See Parsing Incomplete Records for more details. |
| Allow Incomplete Text Items | Yes | This field specifies that the last text item is allowed to have less bytes than the copybook implies. This field is only available for COBOL copybooks and it is enabled only if Allow Incomplete Records is selected. See Parsing Incomplete Records for more details. |
| Ignore Invalid Items | Yes | This field turns off errors resulting from invalid content in the binary data in an elementary item. This field is only available for COBOL copybooks. |
| Check String Values for Invalid XML Characters | Yes |
This field specifies whether, during parsing, the activity checks for invalid XML characters in XML output. Invalid XML characters can occur depending on binary content and character set selections. If both the Check String Values for Invalid XML Characters field and the Ignore Invalid Items field are set to Yes, an invalid XML character will not cause an activity error, but the character is not included in the activity output. If only the Check String Values for Invalid XML Characters field is set to Yes, and the Ignore Invalid Items field is set to No, the activity fails. If the Check String Values for Invalid XML Characters field is not set to Yes, the activity does not check for invalid XML characters, regardless of the value of the Ignore Invalid Items field. Not checking for invalid characters might cause incremental performance improvements, but this setting should only be used when data is guaranteed to be XML compliant. |