Positional flat file line variable length

mohamed.souiai@gmail.com

Dear All,

I have to parse a positional flat file. I am using the biztalk xml
flat file disassembler with a complex schema that I defined. The issue
is that there are some lines that the length is variable. Sometimes
it's 200 and sometime it's 201 positions

Do you please know a suitable way to solve this?

custom pipeline probing ???

Thanks is advance!!!
Mohamed.

Jan Eliasen

On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 09:28:09 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

>I have to parse a positional flat file. I am using the biztalk xml
>flat file disassembler with a complex schema that I defined. The issue
>is that there are some lines that the length is variable. Sometimes
>it's 200 and sometime it's 201 positions
>
>Do you please know a suitable way to solve this?
First: A positional file should ALWAYS have the same number of bytes
in each record. That is the definition of a positional file...

Anyway, depending on which element has the extra byte, you have some
options. You can declare an optional field at the end of the record
with size 1.

Or you can set the length to be the longest (the one that will give
you 201 characters) and allow early record termination on the schema
(not 100% sure about the name of the property).

There are probably other ways around it.

But really... tell the people that send you variable length positional
files to stop it :-)

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