An update is available for the BizTalk Pipeline Component for Host Data Conversion that adds support for additional configuration properties, an XML assembler and disassembler, and new data types

Introduction

This article describes a software update that adds support for some additional configuration properties, an XML assembler and XML disassembler, and new data types for the BizTalk Pipeline Component for Host Data Conversion feature. This feature is included in Microsoft Host Integration Server 2010.

More Information

The BizTalk Pipeline Component for Host Data Conversion enables you to add message or record conversion to existing BizTalk adapters that do not offer built-in transformation or formatting. Such adapters include the adapters for WebSphere MQ and for FTP. Host data conversion is based on existing Host Integration Server technologies and offers an intuitive Designer plug-in for Microsoft Visual Studio and includes COBOL, RPG, and XSD import and export. The host data conversion runtime engine converts numeric, datetime, and string data types for a range of platforms and locales. This enables BizTalk developers to produce BizTalk message pipeline-level solutions that scale and perform well.

The update adds support for the following features to the BizTalk Pipeline Component for Host Data Conversion:

• An XML assembler and an XML disassembler for BizTalk Server Send and Receive Pipelines.

• Additional Host Code Page support: Before this update, the BizTalk Pipeline Component for Host Data Conversion only supported the EBCDIC - U.S./Canada (37) host code page for data conversions.

• CICS User Data Programming Model: Before this update, the BizTalk Pipeline Component for Host Data Conversion only supported the CICS Link programming model. The addition of the CICS User Data programming model is useful for scenarios where more than 32 kilobytes (KB) of data must be sent at a time.

• SendCompleteCOMMAREA property: If you are using the CICS Link programming model, the BizTalk Send Pipeline will send the whole 32 KB buffer when SendCompleteCOMMAREA is set to a value of True. If SendCompleteCOMMAREA is set to False, only the actual data in the buffer is sent. The CICS Link programming model was the only programming model available before this update.

• InitialBufferValue property: This property enables you to control how the data buffer being used is initialized. By default, the BizTalk Pipeline Component initializes the data buffer to binary zeros. You can use the InitialBufferValue property to specify how the data buffer is initialized.

• Short and Integer Host data types: The following host data types for Short and Integer data are added:

  • PIC SX(n) Numeric String

  • PIX X(n) Numeric String

  • S (Numeric String) RPG Type

  It was found that, even after additional host code page support was added, the BizTalk Pipeline Component converted numeric host data types by using host code page 37 (EBCDIC - U.S./Canada) even if another code page was specified. These new host data types for Short and Integer data types allow for string representations of the data, and this provides more flexibility across different kinds of systems.