Data Integration Suite – XML to XML Mapping

Data Integration Suite is the ultimate XML data integration tool, offering a comprehensive feature list of powerful visual XML mappers for getting data from-and-to virtually any data format. Data Integration Suite's XML Mapper employs a standards-based approach to XML mapping, electing to implement the underlying XML mapping code in either XSLT or XQuery rather then relying on proprietary DOM-like program code generation schemes which cannot be easily customized, and are not scalable.

True XML Mapping: Visual Editing of XQuery and XSLT

A key differentiator of Data Integration Suite’s XML Mapper is that it operates on standard XSLT or XQuery files which is a sharp contrast to other XML tools which internally express XML mappings as proprietary mapping formats which in-turn are not editable. Using the XML Mapper, developers can load any existing XSLT stylesheet or XQuery expression and immediately use the visually intuitive, drag-and-drop XML mapping features to accelerate the development of custom XML mappings.

Furthermore, Data Integration Suite’s powerful XML mapping tool features an optional split-screen interface (illustrated below) that displays two synchronized panes: in the top pane, a visual abstraction of the XML mapping being performed, and in the bottom pane, the underlying XSLT or XQuery source code used to implement the desired XML mapping.

As developers visually define XML mappings in the XML Mapper by specifying various flow control blocks and connecting inputs with outputs, the underlying source code view is automatically updated with the XSLT or XQuery code required to perform your desired mapping operation. Similarly, developers can manually edit the source code (either the XSLT and XQuery code) and Data Integration Suite automatically updates the visual model. Data Integration Suite is the only XML Mapper available in the marketplace today which supports this true XML mapping capability.

Universal Data Mapping Input Architecture

The XML Mapper can handle virtually any input and output format, and perform the mapping in XSLT or XQuery. The following input formats are supported by the XML Mapper:

• XML Instance Document
• XML Schema
• Document Type Definition (DTD)
• Relational Databases
• Live Web Service Data
• EDI standards
• Any other non-xml flat file data format

Of course, Data Integration Suite supports advanced multi-data-source data integration scenarios involving multiple input sources, for example, developers could easily create an XML mapping which aggregates data from say, both a relational database, and live Web Service data simply by adding two data sources to the XML mapping project.

Create/Change Target XML Schema on the Fly

The target output format of an XML mapping can be loaded from any custom DTD or XML Schema. If developers don't already have a target XML data model in mind, they can define the targeted output format on the fly by dragging and dropping desired data components into the target pane and specifying how that data should be represented in the output format. For example, the following illustration defines that the "subject" XML data element in the source document should appear as a new child element of the "book" element in the target XML output format.

Support for Programatic Data Manipulation

Data Integration Suite’s XML mapper is completely customizable and provides a full range of options to perform specific data manipulation operations. For example, developers can create function blocks to perform flow control (iteration), conditional processing (logical comparisons), mathematical computations, using the various advanced, standards-based data processing aspects of the XQuery or XSLT data transformation and query languages.

Developers can also execute custom data processing logic expressed externally in programming languages such as Java through the use of XSLT or XQuery functions. The following illustration shows an XML Mapping project implemented in XQuery — here we are adding a FLWOR Block (For, Let, Where, Order by, Return) to the visual XML mapping to compute a join of repeating data elements.

Preserve Mapping Project Layout

The XML Mapper includes the ability to preserve the visual layout of an XML mapping project. This is a powerful feature given that the XML Mapper operates on raw XSLT or XQuery files and unlike other XML mapping tools, it does not require any additional proprietary configuration files. How This is accomplished by saving the visual layout information of an XML mapping within an XML comment field at the bottom of the XSLT stylesheet or XQuery expression file — this additional data is ignored by XML processing components thus does not cause any compatibility problems.

Integrated Debugging, Editing, and Performance Benchmarking

Data Integration Suite’s XML Integrated Development Environment includes a full featured, integrated XML Mapper, enabling developers to effectively build sophisticated XML mappings consisting of queries and data transformation in an intuitive, visual manner. In addition to XML to XML mapping, Data Integration Suite also supports mapping for:

Data Integration Suite also provides an XML Editor, Debugger, and Profiler that provide integrated support for developing XML data integration applications which are then powered by Data Integration Suite’s runtime deployment engine. The Data Integration Suite IDE is available for Windows 2000 SP2, Windows XP, or Windows Vista.