Floating component

The floating component represents an object that may appear after any component of the group.

An implicit group can have a floating component; an explicit group cannot. If the group is prefix or infix delimited, the floating component is displayed before the delimiter. If the group is postfix delimited, the floating component is displayed after the delimiter.

A floating component can be an optional component that may appear after any other component. However, it is not included in the component list because it does not appear at a specific location.

If a group has a floating component, a component must be distinguishable from a floating component. For example, components and floating component could start with different initiators.

Note: When a floating component appears in the input data, it is validated during mapping. If there are floating components in your output data, define them as actual components of the output.

A floating component can appear after the initiator (when the type has an initiator), after each component, or both. For EDI and other existing floating components, trees will be converted as after each component.

A floating component can be specified for implicit sequence group, choice group, and unordered group definitions.

A floating component provides additional flexibility to support XML data. With the floating component property, XML element groups would have a floating component defined as an unordered group of XML comments, XML processing instructions, and/or white space.

The XML DTD Importer, for example, uses the floating component property for XML elements whose content contains other elements. For such XML element definitions, a floating component can be a choice of XML comments and/or XML processing instructions.

To define a type as a floating component:

  1. In the Properties window expand the Format property.
  2. With current focus in the Floating Component Value field, define the value for the floating component by pressing Alt and dragging the item from the tree into the Floating Component Value field.