Flat File Adapter Reference

escapeCharacter

Defines the character used for escaping when a reserved character is used within a field value.

any character

/

fillCharacter

Defines a dummy character to fill non-existent values (results in NULL). Used for fixed attribute layout only.

any character

0

quoteCharacter

The quoteCharacter will be ignored by reading field value.

any character

/

recordSeparator

Separator of the different records, normally line feed and carriage return. For serialized files, any other character can be defined.

any character or one of

<newline>

<esc>

<newline>

parses correctly on Unix and Windows platforms

<space>

<tab>

<tabulator>

<unixnewline>

composes newline

<windowsnewline>

composes newline and carriage return

reservedCharacters

Defines a list of characters to be escaped automatically when the file is composed.

any character

{"/", "%", "&", "(", ")"}

attributeLayout

Defines the attribute layout (fixed or separated) of the flat file record.

• Fixed: For attribute values that are shorter than the maximum length of the field, the field is filled with a fill character. As per default, this is blank space, but you can change the fill character in tagged value fillCharacter of the <<FlatFile>> class (see Tagged Values of Class <<FlatFile>>).

• Separated: If separated is used, specify the separator using attributeSeparator (see below).

fixed

fixed attribute layout

separated

separated attribute layout

attributeSeparator

Defines the attribute/field separator.

any character

use this character as attribute separator

<Tab>

use tabulator as attribute separator

attributePattern

A RegEx pattern to parse the record content into the attributes using capture groups.

a valid regular expression

^(.?)(://)([A-Za-z0-9.])(:[0-9])(/.)$

evaluationOrder

Defines the order in which the association of the classes starting on same parent class must be processed, see (25.1) Flat File Adapter Parsing Process.

any integer

ignoreEmptyRecords

Boolean value for ignoring empty records. If set to true, no item will be generated, if none of the defined attributes or sub records have any content.

Note, that a record containing only empty Strings is not empty – in opposition to a record composed from NULLs. See ignoreEmptyStrings below to skip processing of records containing only empty Strings.

true

ignore empty records

false (default)

process empty records

ignoreEmptyStrings

Boolean value for ignoring empty string attributes. If set to true, empty string values will be processed to NULL.
Use this tag in combination with ignoreEmptyRecords to skip processing of records containing only empty Strings.

true

ignore empty string values

false (default)

preserve empty string values

lineNumber

Specifies the number of a record in the file. The first record is lineNumber=1, the second lineNumber=2, etc.

any integer

pattern

A pattern to identify the record. The pattern is checked before the fields are separated. If no pattern is defined, all records will be parsed.

any character

a valid regular expression

^Pattern.*

suppressEscaping

Boolean value to suppress escaping. If suppressEscaping on a <<FlatFileRecord>> is true, <<FlatFileComplexAttribute>> that are part of this record will inherit this setting.

true

attribute values of this record will not be un-escaped (parser) or escaped (composer)

false

escaping/un-escaping is not suppressed

parseMacro

A macro that is executed while parsing/composing a file or complex field.

This macro can contain multiple commands separated by commas or spaces. Macros on classes are executed before the processing of its attributes or associations. The ID represents a counter.

The following counters are available:

• eight automatic counters with ID AUTO0 .. AUTO7

• two automatic line counters with ID LINE0and LINE1 (parsing only)

• unlimited custom counters with ID CUSTOM0 .. CUSTOMx

Automatic counters are increased by 1 for each processed record. Custom counters have to be increased manually using the increase macro. All counters have the initial value of 0 when they process the first record.

For more details on macro commands see Macro Expressions .

any valid macro expression (see Macro Expressions)

GetCounter(AUTO0)

composeMacro

pattern

A pattern to identify the record. The pattern is checked before the fields are separated. If no pattern is defined, all records will be parsed.

any character

^Pattern.*

a valid regular expression

condition

A condition that must evaluate true if the record exists. The condition can refer to a self object which represents the current state of the parent.

any valid conditional expression

self.UNS.exists()

evaluationOrder

Defines the order in which the associations starting on same parent class must be processed, see (25.1) Flat File Adapter Parsing Process.

any integer

offset

Define the position of this record in the flat file, starting with 0 for the first record and always relative to the parent element.

any integer

decimals

Replaced by format.

externalLength

Number of characters of the field (only for fixed length records relevant).

any integer

format

Pattern for formatting numeric and date & time values. For details see (25.1) Number Formatting respectively (25.1) Date and Time Formatting.

any valid number or dateTime pattern

S9G999G990D00

%Y.%m.%d-%H:%M:%

nativeTyp

deprecated

Replaced by format.

order

The evaluation order of the attributes. If offset is not used, order reflects the field number within the record.

any integer

offset

The character position of this field within the record.

any integer

padding

Defines the padding rule for the field. When parsing, the characters on the left or right side are ignored up to the first different character. When composing, the field is filled on the left or right side with the specified character.

left("<any character>")

left("0")

right("<any character>")

right(" ")

suppressEscaping

Boolean value to suppress escaping.

true

attribute values of this attribute will not be un-escaped (parser) or escaped (composer)

false

escaping/un-escaping is not suppressed

parseMacro

A macro that is executed while parsing/composing a file or complex field.

This macro can contain multiple commands separated by commas or spaces. Macros on classes are executed before the processing of its attributes or associations. The ID represents a counter.

The following counters are available:

• eight automatic counters with ID AUTO0 .. AUTO7

• two automatic line counters with ID LINE0and LINE1 (parsing only)

• unlimited custom counters with ID CUSTOM0 .. CUSTOMx

Automatic counters are increased by 1 for each processed record. Custom counters have to be increased manually using the increase macro. All counters have the initial value of 0 when they process the first record.

For more details on macro commands see Macro Expressions .

any valid macro expression (see Macro Expressions)

GetCounter(0)

composeMacro

format

Pattern for formatting numeric and date & time values. For details see (25.1) Number Formatting respectively (25.1) Date and Time Formatting.

order

The evaluation order of the attributes. If offset is not used, order reflects the field number within the record.

any integer

offset

The relative position of the field in respect of the other fields in the record, e.g. field number 3 has offset = 2.

any integer

suppressEscaping

Boolean value to suppress escaping.

parseMacro

A macro that is executed while parsing/composing a file or complex field.

This macro can contain multiple commands separated by commas or spaces. Macros on classes are executed before the processing of its attributes or associations. The ID represents a counter.

The following counters are available:

• eight automatic counters with ID AUTO0 .. AUTO7

• two automatic line counters with ID LINE0and LINE1 (parsing only)

• unlimited custom counters with ID CUSTOM0 .. CUSTOMx

Automatic counters are increased by 1 for each processed record. Custom counters have to be increased manually using the increase macro. All counters have the initial value of 0 when they process the first record.

For more details on macro commands see Macro Expressions .

any valid macro expression (see Macro Expressions)

GetCounter(0)

composeMacro

attributeLayout

Defines the attribute layout (fixed or separated) of the complex attribute.

• Fixed: For attribute values that are shorter than the maximum length of the field, the field is filled with a fill character. As per default, this is blank space, but you can change the the fill character in tagged value fillCharacter of the <<FlatFile>> class (see Tagged Values of Class <<FlatFile>>).

• Separated: If separated is used, specify the separator using attributeSeparator (see below).

fixed

fixed attribute layout

separated

separated attribute layout

attributeSeparator

Defines the attribute/field separator.

any character

use this character as attribute separator

<Tab>

use tabulator as attribute separator

attributePattern

A RegEx pattern to parse the field content into a complex structure using capture groups.

a valid regular expression

^(.?)(://)([A-Za-z0-9.])(:[0-9])(/.)$

suppressEscaping

Boolean value to suppress escaping.

true

attribute values of this attribute will not be un-escaped (parser) or escaped (composer)

false

escaping/un-escaping is not suppressed

parseMacro

A macro that is executed while parsing/composing a file or complex field.

This macro can contain multiple commands separated by commas or spaces. Macros on classes are executed before the processing of its attributes or associations. The ID represents a counter.

The following counters are available:

• eight automatic counters with ID AUTO0 .. AUTO7

• two automatic line counters with ID LINE0and LINE1 (parsing only)

• unlimited custom counters with ID CUSTOM0 .. CUSTOMx

Automatic counters are increased by 1 for each processed record. Custom counters have to be increased manually using the increase macro. All counters have the initial value of 0 when they process the first record.

For more details on macro commands see Macro Expressions .

any valid macro expression (see Macro Expressions)

GetCounter(0)

composeMacro

resource

Instead of specifying parameters name or data for the parse flat file action (see section Flat File Adapter Reference#Parameters below), you can import the file to be parsed as a resource to your Builder project (see (25.1) Importing File Resources). Specify the name of this resource here.

Tagged value resource takes precedence over both parameters name and data. When a resource is specified, the service will only try to parse the file specified via the resource. Values that have been provided through parameters will be omitted.

The resource can be replaced changing the resource path in the Flat File Parser/Composer settings of the xUML service. See xUML Service Settings for more information on changing the settings of a service.

any valid imported file resource added to the component diagram

<any>

<<FlatFile>>class

in

Provide an object containing the flat file data. The class defining the type of this object should have stereotype <<FlatFile>> and should depict the structure of the file.

encoding

String

in

Provide the encoding of the file to be composed as specified in the (25.1) Charset Definitions appendix.

any valid encoding (see (25.1) Charset Definitions)

UTF-8

default

ISO-8859-1 (Latin1)

locale

NumbersLocale

in

Specify how number values will be treated, when written to the flat file (decimal point, currency symbol, ...). You can overwrite the system locales here. Refer to (25.1) Number Formatting for more information.

default

system locales

name

String

in

(

)

Specify a full path to the flat file, if you want to write the <<FlatFile>> object to the file system.
Alternatively, you can compose the flat file to a Blob object (see parameter data). Note, that the name parameter takes priority over data.

tmp/myFlatFile.txt

data

Blob

out

(

)

If you want to compose the <<FlatFile>> object to a Blob object, use this parameter as output of the compose action.
Alternatively, you can write the composed flat file directly to the file system (see parameter name). Note, that the name parameter takes priority over data.

data

Blob

in

(

)

Provide the flat file data to be parsed.
Alternatively, you can specify a path to a flat file in the file system (see parameter name). Note, that the name parameter takes priority over data.

name

String

in

(

)

Specify a full path to the flat file to be parsed.
Alternatively, you can parse the flat file from a Blob object (see parameter data). Note, that the name parameter takes priority over data.

tmp/myFile.txt

encoding

String

in

Provide the encoding of the file to be parsed as specified in the (25.1) Charset Definitions appendix.

any valid encoding (see (25.1) Charset Definitions)

UTF-8

default

ISO-8859-1 (Latin1)

locale

NumbersLocale

in

Specify how number values will be treated, when parsed from the flat file (decimal point, currency symbol, ...). You can overwrite the system locales here, if the file was written with divergent locales. Refer to (25.1) Number Formatting for more information.

<any>

<<FlatFile>>class

out

The adapter returns a parsed flat file object. The class defining the type of this object should have stereotype <<FlatFile>> and should depict the structure of the file.