XML with Sterling Gentran:Server Overview

XML (Extensible Markup Language) provides you with an flexible language to define document content. This enables you to exchange information with your business partners independent of platform or system compatibility.

IBM® Sterling Gentran:Server® for Microsoft Windows enables you to manage and translate documents, regardless of the document format (such as XML, traditional electronic commerce, your proprietary format).

The Sterling Gentran:Server XML implementation conforms to the rules of the XML language 1.0 specification, as published by the World Wide Web Consortium (except as specified below). In the interest of flexibility, Sterling Gentran:Server diverges from the World Wide Web Consortium’s base 1.0 XML specification in the following ways:

  • You can specify the number of times that a group can repeat.
  • You can specify the number of times an element in a mixed group can repeat.
  • You can repeat an element (with a different structure than the original element) in a different part of the document. For example, you can define an address element twice—once under Ship To and once under Bill To.

Sterling Gentran:Server supports XML with the following specifications:

  • The XML document must meet the well-formed document criteria that is specified for XML.
    Note: If the document is not well-formed, Sterling Gentran:Server generates an error message.
  • Sterling Gentran:Server does not validate against the Document Type Definition (DTD) during translation but it does use the DTD when creating maps.
  • In this release, Sterling Gentran:Server supports external parameter entities but does not support mapping of external entities, notations, elements of type ANY, comments, conditional sections, internal DTDs, conditional sections, unparsed entities (non-XML data), or processing instructions. In most cases, Sterling Gentran:Server ignores the items listed as not supported.
  • Sterling Gentran:Server can read UTF-8 and UTF-16 encoded files if a compatible code page is loaded on your computer.

If the XML side of a map is currently selected, the following menu options can be selected from the Edit\Create Sub and Edit\Insert menus (unavailable items are dimmed):

  • Element
  • Content particle
  • Pcdata
  • Attribute
Note: The Create Sub and Insert functions are also available when you right-click a map object.