Parse and Serialize Strings
String parsing and serialization is an advanced mapping technique that enables you to configure the component to either parse data from a string, or serialize data to a string. This technique can be regarded as an alternative to reading data from (or writing data to) files. MapForce components which parse strings or serialize data to strings can be useful in a variety of situations, for example:
•You need to insert structures such as XML, text, or JSON files into database fields or Excel spreadsheet cells.
•You need to convert XML fragments stored in database fields into standalone XML files.
•You have legacy data stored as text (for example, fixed-length content in a single database field), and you would like to convert this data into a fully sortable, field-based structure (using FlexText, for example)
String parsing and serialization is available for the following MapForce component types:
•Text (CSV, fixed-length field text, EDI, and MapForce FlexText templates)
•JSON schema files
•XML schema files
For all component types above, string parsing and serialization is supported in the BUILT-IN target language. In addition, parsing strings to JSON or serializing JSON from strings is supported in BUILT-IN, C#, and Java.