Removing header from a flat file in BizTalk - biztalk

What is the simplest way to remove the header row from a flat file in BizTalk? I have implemented this by creating a separate schema for the header row (and one for the body) and then set the HeaderSpecName property in the 'Configure Pipeline' dialog to the header schema I've just created and then the PreserveHeader property to false. My problem, however, is that with this solution I need to create a schema that does nothing other than it needs to exist so I can remove the header row.

I believe what you stated is the recommended way to do what you are asking. I just had to do this on a project i am working on and chose to have the extra schema.
Another option would be to write your own custom pipeline component for the Disassemble stage that executes before the flat file dissassembler. The Decode stage would work too, but it seems that the disassemble stage is made for this type of work.
This second option would make the removing of the header row more generic and could be used across many different schemas so you wouldn't have to create a separate header schema for each flat file schema.

i recommend doing this through the flat file schema wizard; define your first record as a singular record and then your other records as repeating records. then in whatever map or transformations you're working with you can just ignore the header record. you could also ignore the header record when going through the FF wizard by ignoring it altogether, but i prefer to have everything defined in my schemas...
check out the help and microsoft tutorials, also there's a decent article on the code project that incorporates identifying header records. note that if you know the absolute position of the header record (like: "always the first line") you don't need to mess with record tagging.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/13706/Creating-Flat-File-schemas-using-the-BizTalk-Serve

You could always just parse the header row and not map it.

The schema exists for many reasons. One such reason is to capture the structure of the message generated by a party which effectively means the agreement. So it is good to capture the schema as it is even though you may not use the fields.

I don't think PreserveHeader acts as you may expect. This property simply determines whether or not values from the header are promoted into the context of the XML message that comes out of the disassembler.

Related

Missing Root node in xml file in biztalk

I have researched a lot on internet, but still not able to get exact solution for my problem. The problem mentioned in below link is much similar to mine, but this will not work.
If record exists then map, if not map another - Biztalk mapping
My Problem:
I have xml source file which has invoice information, something like this.
-<invoice>
<invoiceNumber>1124</invoiceNumber>
+<invoiceHeader>
+<invoiceDetails>
</invoice>
<invoiceNumber>1598</invoiceNumber>
+<invoiceHeader>
+<invoiceDetails>
</invoice>
It is possible that, sometimes the subnode ie. invoiceDetails information can be missing for few invoice Numbers,but header information will be present.
Output required:
The output file (.csv) should have all invoice numbers irrespective of detail tag present or not?
Add a Looping Functoid to the Map with the source link from and the target from the Looping Functoid linked to the row element in the Flat File Schema.
It will work, trust us. :)
It depends on how is the output schema, but solution must be easy only link tag to the output.
Behind the scenes, the XSLT produced is a loop for each tag and copy that value to the output, irrespective of detail tag present or not.

Creating CSV file with Header and Sending it through the Flat File Assembler

I have to query a view in database, map this schema and create a CSV file with Header. The Header should be the name of each field in the view. I tried using the Flat file Schema to create a Header Record and Body Record.I created the Header Record with Elements having the default value as the name of each field in the view. It works good.But I am wondering if there is any other better way of doing this. It would be great if anyone suggest me the best way of doing this.
What you've done is likely the most common solution for this requirement. There's nothing wrong with it.
There may be different solutions, but not necessarily better.

BizTalk Flat File, multi-line record debatching

I've tried to find the answer in other questions, and none of the "standard" answers are working, so I'm hoping someone can either point me to where this has already been answered, or can tell me how to do this.
I have a large file with multiple documents within it. For a sample, assume something like this
DOCUMENT_IDENTIFIER 123400000000000000000123457 OTHER STUFF HERE
LINE WITH STUFF HERE
LINE WITH STUFF HERE
DOCUMENT_IDENTIFIER 123500000000000000000127456 OTHER STUFF HERE
LINE WITH STUFF HERE
LINE WITH STUFF HERE
Now, I'll need to preserve everything in the DOCUMENT_IDENTIFIER Line starting with the first 0 through the 123 (or 127 in the second Document) That header line, plus the all the LINE WITH STUFF HERE lines below it should make up one Document, and a new document should start at the second DOCUMENT_IDENTIFIER line.
When I attempt to use the standard Debatching techniques, the pipeline fails: either it just fails completely (when, for instance, I try to define a header and body schemas for the pipeline) or it never starts the second document (if I try just a body schema).
I'm certain this is something fairly simple, but I'm completely missing how to get it done. Any suggestions/direction would be welcome.
If it matters, I'm stuck on BT2006 R2, at current.
What does your Body Schema look like? I would start getting that right and make sure that you have something that will create xml with separate records of all the "DOCUMENT_IDENTIFIER 1234" records.
I would use the "DOCUMENT_IDENTIFIER "1234 bit as the Tag Identifier, and then I would set the Tag Offset to 4, to avoid the first 4 characters.
You should have a
RecordForDocumentIdentifiers (Root of your Schema) Group Maxoccurs=*
RecordForDocumentIdentifier (Set the Tag Identifier here)
Fields for the columns you want to parse
RecordForOtherLines Group Maxoccurs=*
RecordForOtherLine Maxoccurs=* or whatever your rules are.
Fields for the columns of other lines
When that seems to parse your example okay, and generate the XML you want, I would start creating my header and body schemas from that. I know it is 2 steps, but it takes some of the guesswork out of it.
I guess the Header schema would be picked from the RecordDocumentIdentifier and the body would be RecordForOtherLines (The outer record for that).
I hope that helps. If not, post your actual file and schema and let us take a look at it.

ASP.NET MVC 2 EditModel include Id? Securing Id is not tampered with

I am looking for some best practices when is comes to creating EditMoels and updating data in an ASP.NET MVC app. Lets say I have a Url like so /Post/Edit?Id=25
I am ensuring the user has permissions to edit the specific post by Id on the Get request and the same for my Post in the controller. I am using the ValidateAntiForgeryToken.
Questions: Should I include the Id property in my EditModel? If so, Should I encrypt it?
The problem is I can use FireBug to edit the Id hiddedinput and edit a different post as long as I have permission to do so. This is not horrible, but seems wrong.
Any help would be great!
There are several ways to prevent this.
The first - don't send sensitive data to the client at all. Keep the post id in session variables, so the user can never edit it. This may or may not be an option depending on your architecture.
The next approach is to convert the direct reference to an indirect one. For example, instead of sending postids = {23452, 57232, 91031} to the client to render a drop-down list, you should send an opaque list {1,2,3}. The server alone knows that 1 means 23452, 2 means 57232 and so on. This way, the user can't modify any parameter you don't want him to.
The last approach is including some kind of hash value that adds as an integrity check. For example, suppose you have 3 hidden fields in a html page - {userId=13223, postId=923, role=author}. You first sort the field names and then concatenate the values to get a string like postId=923&userId=13223&role=author. Then, append a server secret to this string, and hash (SHA-1 or MD5) the entire string. For eg. SHA-1('postId=923&userId=13223&role=author&MySuperSecretKey'). Finally add this hashed value as a hidden parameter. You may also want to add another hidden field called ProtectedParameters=userId,postId,role.
When the next request is made, redo the entire process. If the hash differs, balk the process.
Security wise, I have listed the options in decreasing order. At the same time, its probably in the increasing order of convenience. You have to pick the right mix for your application.
I don't think you should worry with that, if the user does what you said, i suppose that you'll know who edited what, so if he edits the wrong post, doing as you said, you can always remove his edition rights...
If you can't thrist your users, don't let them edit anything...

Deleting / Replacing A Node in E4X (AS3 - Flex)

I'm building a listing/grid control in a Flex application and using it in a .NET web application. To make a really long story short I am getting XML from a webservice of serialized objects. I have a page limit of how many things can be on a page. I've taken a data grid and made it page, sort across pages, and handle some basic filtering.
In regards to paging I'm using a Dictionary keyed on the page and storing the XML for that page. This way whenever a user comes back to a page that I've saved into this dictionary I can grab the XML from local memory instead of hitting the webservice. Basically, I'm caching the data retrieved from each call to the webservice for a page of data.
There are several things that can expire my cache. Filtering and sorting are the main reason. However, a user may edit a row of data in the grid by opening an editor. The data they edit could cause the data displayed in the row to be stale. I could easily go to the webservice and get the whole page of data, but since the page size is set at runtime I could be looking at a large amount of records to retrieve.
So let me now get to the heart of the issue that I am experiencing. In order to prevent getting the whole page of data back I make a call to the webservice asking for the completely updated record (the editor handles saving its data).
Since I'm using custom objects I need to serialize them on the server to XML (this is handled already for other portions of our software). All data is handled through XML in e4x. The cache in the Dictionary is stored as an XMLList.
Now let me show you my code...
var idOfReplacee:String = this._WebService.GetSingleModelXml.lastResult.*[0].*[0].#Id;
var xmlToReplace:XMLList = this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data.(#Id == idOfReplacee);
if(xmlToReplace.length() > 0)
{
delete (this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data.(#Id == idOfReplacee)[0]);
this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data += this._WebService.GetSingleModelXml.lastResult.*[0].*[0];
}
Basically, I get the id of the node I want to replace. Then I find it in the cache's Data property (XMLList). I make sure it exists since the filter on the second line returns the XMLList.
The problem I have is with the delete line. I cannot make that line delete that node from the list. The line following the delete line works. I've added the node to the list.
How do I replace or delete that node (meaning the node that I find from the filter statement out of the .Data property of the cache)???
Hopefully the underscores for all of my variables do not stay escaped when this is posted! otherwise this.&#95 == this._
Thanks for the answers guys.
#Theo:
I tried the replace several different ways. For some reason it would never error, but never update the list.
#Matt:
I figured out a solution. The issue wasn't coming from what you suggested, but from how the delete works with Lists (at least how I have it in this instance).
The Data property of the _DataPages dictionary object is list of the definition nodes (was arrived at by a previous filtering of another XML document).
<Models>
<Definition Id='1' />
<Definition Id='2' />
</Models>
I ended up doing this little deal:
//gets the index of the node to replace from the same filter
var childIndex:int = (this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data.(#Id == idOfReplacee)[0]).childIndex();
//deletes the node from the list
delete this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data[childIndex];
//appends the new node from the webservice to the list
this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data += this._WebService.GetSingleModelXml.lastResult.*[0].*[0];
So basically I had to get the index of the node in the XMLList that is the Data property. From there I could use the delete keyword to remove it from the list. The += adds my new node to the list.
I'm so used to using the ActiveX or Mozilla XmlDocument stuff where you call "SelectSingleNode" and then use "replaceChild" to do this kind of stuff. Oh well, at least this is in some forum where someone else can find it. I do not know the procedure for what happens when I answer my own question. Perhaps this insight will help someone else come along and help answer the question better!
Perhaps you could use replace instead?
var oldNode : XML = this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data.(#Id == idOfReplacee)[0];
var newNode : XML = this._WebService.GetSingleModelXml.lastResult.*[0].*[0];
oldNode.parent.replace(oldNode, newNode);
I know this is an incredibly old question, but I don't see (what I think is) the simplest solution to this problem.
Theo had the right direction here, but there's a number of errors with the way replace was being used (and the fact that pretty much everything in E4X is a function).
I believe this will do the trick:
oldNode.parent().replace(oldNode.childIndex(), newNode);
replace() can take a number of different types in the first parameter, but AFAIK, XML objects are not one of them.
I don't immediately see the problem, so I can only venture a guess. The delete line that you've got is looking for the first item at the top level of the list which has an attribute "Id" with a value equal to idOfReplacee. Ensure that you don't need to dig deeper into the XML structure to find that matching id.
Try this instead:
delete (this._DataPages[this._Options.PageIndex].Data..(#Id == idOfReplacee)[0]);
(Notice the extra '.' after Data). You could more easily debug this by setting a breakpoint on the second line of the code you posted, and ensure that the XMLList looks like you expect.

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