| Data Element Separation |
Enumerated type |
Select one of the following values to specify
the method that is used to separate the data elements within the type.
- Tagged Delimited.
This value indicates that all elements within the complex type are
identified by a tag, and, if a value is specified in the optional Delimiter property, are separated
by that value. You must set the Tag property
for all child elements of simple type, and you can set the Delimiter property to a non-empty
value. See Message Sets: Global element TDS properties. You
must also set the Tag Data Separator or
the Length of Tag property.
- Tagged Fixed Length.
This value indicates that each element is identified by a tag, and
the data has a fixed length. There are no delimiters. You must set
the Tag property for each
of the child elements of this complex type, and each child element
must have a Length or Length Reference property assigned
to it. You must also set the Tag Data
Separator or the Length of
Tag property.
- Tagged Encoded Length.
This value indicates that all elements within the complex type are
separated by a tag, and a length field follows each tag. There are
no delimiters. The tag can be fixed length, as set by the Length of Tag property, or variable
length delimited by the Tag Data Separator property.
You must also set the Length Of Encoded
Length property so that the parser knows the size of the
length field, and set the Extra Chars
in Encoded Length property. This property tells the parser
what to subtract from the value in the Length
Of Encoded Length property to get the actual length of the
data that follows the length field.
This method provides a more
flexible way of handling ACORD AL3 standard messages than using the Fixed Length AL3 value, by allowing
different parts of the messages to be at different versions of the
ACORD AL3 standard.
- All Elements Delimited.
This value indicates that all elements within the complex type are
separated by a delimiter. You must set a value in the Delimiter property.
- Variable Length Elements Delimited.
This value indicates that some of the elements within the complex
type might be of variable length. Variable length elements must be
delimited by the value specified in the Delimiter property.
- Use Data Pattern.
This value indicates that the parser determines the elements by matching
the data with the regular expression that is set in the Data Pattern property of the element
or type member. See Message Sets: Message definition file properties.
- Fixed Length. This
value indicates that all elements within the complex type are fixed
length. The next data element is accessed by adding the value of the Length property to the offset. See Message Sets: Global element TDS properties. If you set the Data Element Separation property
of a complex type to Fixed Length,
you must also set the Data Element
Separation property of all complex children of this type
to Fixed Length. Each
child element must have a Length or Length Reference property assigned
to it.
- Fixed Length AL3.
This value has a similar meaning to the separation type Fixed Length, but also indicates
to the parser that a number of predefined rules regarding missing
optional elements, encoded lengths, and versioning, must be applied.
If you set the Data Element Separation property
of a complex type to Fixed Length
AL3, you must also set the Data
Element Separation property of all complex children of this
type to Fixed Length AL3.
- Undefined. This value
is set automatically if you set the Type
Composition property of a complex type to Message, and you cannot change
it to any other value.
Do not set the Type
Composition property to Empty, Choice, Unordered Set, Ordered Set, Sequence, or Simple Unordered Set. If you do,
you cannot check in the type.
|
| Group Indicator |
String |
Specify the value of a special character, or
string, that precedes the data that belongs to a group, or a complex
type, within the bit stream. |
| Group Terminator |
String |
Specify the value of a special character, or
string, that terminates the data that belongs to a group, or a complex
type, within the bit stream. |
| Delimiter |
String |
Specify the value of a special character, or
string, that specifies the delimiter that is used between data elements. This
property applies only to the delimited Data
Element Separation methods (Tagged
Delimited, All Elements
Delimited, and Variable
Length Elements Delimited).
|
| Suppress Absent Element Delimiters |
Enumerated type |
Use this property to select whether you want
delimiters to be suppressed for elements that are missing within a
message. Select from:
- End Of Type. Use this
option to suppress the delimiter when an element is missing. For example,
if the model has been defined to have up to three elements and only
two are present, the last delimiter can be omitted from the message.
- Never. Use this option
to ensure that even if optional elements are not present, all delimiters
are written out. Use this option when the same delimiter is used to
delimit parent and child objects. For example, if an optional child
element is missing, message processing applications cannot tell where
the child elements in a message end and the next parent element starts,
if the delimiters are all the same.
|
| Observe Element Length |
Check box |
This property is applicable when Data Element Separation is All Elements Delimited or Tagged Delimited. Select this
check box if the Length property
of child simple elements is significant when parsing and writing.
- During parsing, an exception is thrown if the length of the extracted
data exceeds the specified length. Otherwise, the data is trimmed
according to the Justification and
Padding Character properties
of the child element.
- During writing, an exception is thrown if the data to write exceeds
the specified length. Otherwise, the data is padded according to
the Justification and Padding Character properties of the
child element.
Clear this check box to ignore the Length property when parsing and
writing.
The default value depends on the setting of the Messaging Standard property (at the
message set level) and the Data Element
Separation property.
- If Data Element Separation is All Elements Delimited and the Messaging Standard is TLOG, the check box is selected.
- If Data Element Separation is All Elements Delimited and the Messaging Standard is other than TLOG, the check box is cleared.
- If Data Element Separation is Tagged Delimited, the check box
is cleared.
For all other data element separation methods, the check box
is disabled and does not influence the behavior of the TDS parser. |
| Tag Data Separator |
Button and String |
Specify the value of a special character or
string that separates the Tag from the data. The Tag Data Separator and Length of Tag properties are mutually
exclusive. If you set the property Tag
Data Separator, it overrides Length
of Tag.
This property applies only to the tagged Data Element Separation methods (Tagged Delimited, Tagged Fixed Length, and Tagged Encoded Length).
|
| Length of Tag |
Button and Integer |
Specify the length of a tag value. When the
message is parsed, this property allows tags to be extracted from
the bit stream if the Tag Data Separator property
is not set. The Tag Data Separator and Length of Tag properties are mutually
exclusive. If you set the property Tag
Data Separator, it overrides this value.
This property
applies only to the tagged Data Element
Separation methods (Tagged
Delimited, Tagged Fixed
Length, and Tagged Encoded
Length).
|
| Length of Encoded Length |
Integer |
Specifies the number of characters (not bytes)
after a tag that are used for the length field. Enter a value from
0 to 2147483647. You must set this property if you have set the Data Element Separation property
to Tagged Encoded Length;
it is not valid otherwise.
The actual number of data characters
that are parsed depends on the value of the Extra Chars in Encoded Length property.
|
| Extra Chars in Encoded Length |
Integer |
(Only valid if the Data
Element Separation method is set to Tagged Encoded Length.) Specifies
the number of extra characters included in the value found in the
length field. (For example, the value in the length might include
the size of the length field itself as well as the size of the data
field, or it might be the total size of the tag, length, and data
fields.) Enter a value from 0 to 2147483647. The parser subtracts
this number from the number found in the length field to get the number
of data characters that follow the length field.
You must set
this property if you have set the Data
Element Separation property to Tagged Encoded Length, and the
actual number of data characters is less than the value found in the
length field.
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