Recorddefs

Definition: Recorddefs defines the layout of each record.
Recorddefs is required, except for grammars for editypes 'templatehtml', 'xmlnocheck', 'jsonnocheck'.
Recorddefs is a dictionary; key is record ID/tag, value is list of fields.
There is always a field 'BOTSID' in a record; mostly BOTSID is the first field (fixed format is the exception).

Some specifics for different editypes

  • edifact: record ID is edifact tag (DTM, BGM, etc).
  • X12: record ID is the segment identifier
  • Xml: record ID is xml-tag (without angle brackets).
  • Fixed: bots has to know where record ID is. Default: first three positions in record; this can be set with syntax parameters
  • Csv: Csv/Excel does not always have a record ID (all records in an edi-file are of the same type). Bots uses the name of the record as BOTSID if you use syntax parameter:
    'noBOTSID':True

For each field

Each field is a list of:

  1. field ID; has to be unique (bots checks for this).
  2. M/C: mandatory or conditional.

  3. length. Examples:

    ['field name','C', 9, 'A'],       #max length
['field name','C', (3,9), 'A'],   #min length, max length. Use eg as:
['field name','C', (9,9), 'A'],   #field length should always be 9
['field name','C', 8.3, 'N'],     #length max 8 field, must have 3 decimals.

  4. format. Different per editype. Especially edifact, x12 and tradacoms have their own formatting codes, just use these. For csv, fixed, xml etc no standard formats exists, so bots uses these formats:

    • A (or AN): alphanumeric.
    • AR: right aligned alphanumeric (fixed only)
    • N: fixed decimals
      • Numeric
      • Fixed numbers of decimals. If no decimals are indicated: integer
      • Incoming: format is checked.
      • Outgoing: bots formats this (rounding if needed, add leading zeros)
    • NL: (for fixed only) as fixed decimals, left aligned, trailing blancs
    • NR: (for fixed only) as fixed decimals, right aligned, leading blancs
    • R: floating point
      • Numeric
      • May have any number of decimals
      • Bots does no checking of formatting.
    • RL: (for fixed only) as floating point, left aligned, trailing blancs
    • RR: (for fixed only) as floating point, left aligned, leading blancs

    • I: fixed decimals implicit. Example:

      ['field name','C', 8.2, 'I'],   #max 8 long, last 2 positions are decimals; eg for an amount.
                                #Valid is eg:  12345
                                #Bots converts this to 123.45 (and vice versa)
      • Numeric
      • Fixed number of decimals. Is converted from/to 'normal' amount; rounded if outgoing.
      • There is no decimal sign in the field, the number of decimals is implicit from the definition. Eg:
      • Can be negative
        • D (or DT): date. Either 6 or 8 positions; format YYMMDD or CCYYMMDD. Bots checks for valid dates both in- en outgoing.
        • T (or TM): time. Either 4 or 6 positions; format HHMM or HHMMSS. Bots checks for valid times both in- en outgoing.

Composite fields

Edifact, x12 and tradacoms have composite fields. Example:

['S005', 'C',                      #composite field
    [
    ['S005.0022', 'M', 14, 'AN'],  #subfield nr1
    ['S005.0025', 'C', 2, 'AN'],   #subfield nr2
    ]],

A composite has:

  1. field ID; has to be unique (bots checks for this).
  2. M/C (mandatory/conditional).
  3. a list of subfields.

Note: Bots requires that each composite ID and sub-field has an unique ID. If a composite occurs more than once, do eg like:

    ['C090', 'C', [                        #composite contains 2 subfields with same ID
        ['C090.3286#1', 'M', 70, 'AN'],
        ['C090.3286#2', 'C', 70, 'AN'],
        ]],
    ['C542#1', 'M', [                      #composite occurs twice 
        ['C542.9425#1', 'M', 3, 'AN'],
        ['C542.9424#1', 'C', 35, 'AN'],
        ]],
    ['C542#2', 'C', [                      #composite occurs twice
        ['C542.9425#2', 'M', 3, 'AN'],
        ['C542.9424#2', 'C', 35, 'AN'],
        ]],

Details of field format handling

  • M/C of fields are always checked.
  • min/max length of field are always checked.
  • numerical:
    • '-' is accepted both at beginning and end. Bots outputs only leading '-'
    • '+' is accepted at beginning. Bots does not output '+'
    • thousands separators are removed if specified in syntax-parameter 'triad' (see above).
    • Bots does not output thousands separators
    • default decimal separator is '.'; use syntax-parameter 'decimaal' to change this ('decimaal' is Dutch, sorry about that. Noticed to late to change ;-)). Internally bots only uses/accepts decimal point!
    • (incoming) leading zeros are removed
    • (incoming) trailing zeros are kept
    • '.45' is converted to '0.45'.
    • '4.' is converted to '4'.
    • Note that eg edifact numeric lengths do NOT include decimal sign and negative...

Utility for positions in fixed records

A grammar does not contains the position/offset of each field in a fixed record, but it sure is useful to have this. Add this code to the bottom of the grammar and run/execute the code:

if __name__ == "__main__":
    for key, record in recorddefs.items():
        length = 0
        for field in record:
            print '           ', field, '      #pos',length+1, length + field[2]
            length += field[2]
        print 'Record',key,'  has length ',length, '\n'

Slightly different version - output can be pasted back into grammar

if __name__ == "__main__":
    space = 0
    for key, record in recorddefs.items():
        for field in record:
            space = max(space,len(str(field))+1)
    for key, record in recorddefs.items():
        length = 0
        print '    \'' + key + '\':['
        for field in record:
            print '           ', (str(field) + ',').ljust(space), ' # pos',length+1, '-', length + field[2]
            length += field[2]
        print '    ],'