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The CSV Map connector uses Script to transform flat XML files into CSV, TSV, and PSV file formats. A flat XML file is one where, in addition to the root element, the depth is not more than two levels.

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Key Capabilities

  • Transforms flat XML files into CSV, TSV, and PSV formats using ArcScript templating
  • Visual Designer for simple mappings with automatic field matching and Code view for complex transformations
  • XPath navigation for extracting values from nested XML structures with dynamic template generation

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Overview

The CSV Map connector has two modes of operation: the visual Designer and the scripting-focused Code view. The Designer enables you to visually establish simple relationships between document types. More complicated translations require the Code view, which leverages the Script scripting language to create a mapping template between XML and a flat file structure. To begin, from the Settings tab, upload a sample Source File and Destination File. If the structure of both sample files allows for designer-driven mapping, the visual Designer is populated with the source and destination fields. The application also attempts to populate the Code window with as much of the destination structure as it can.

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Connector Configuration

This section contains all of the configurable connector properties.

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Mapping Tab

Upload files to initiate design-driven mapping of source and destinations fields. Click Upload File, then choose your source and destination files.
  • The Source File represents the XML structure of input documents. Any files processed by the connector should have a matching XML structure. To support designer-driven mapping, this file must be a simple XML, CSV, PSV, or TSV structure.
  • The Destination File file represents the structure of output documents. To use designer-driven mapping, this file must be a simple XML, CSV, PSV, or TSV structure.

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Mappings

This section defines the mapping relationship between input and output files. The Designer view can map simple XML, CSV, PSV, and TSV structures, and the Code view can map more complicated XML structures. See Using the Designer and Using Code View for details.

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Settings Tab

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Connector Configuration

Settings related to the core operation of the connector.

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Advanced Tab

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Advanced Settings

SettingDescription
Processing DelayThe amount of time (in seconds) by which the processing of files placed in the Transactions tab is delayed. This is a legacy setting. Best practice is to use a File connector to manage local file systems instead of this setting.
Local File SchemeA scheme for assigning filenames to messages that are output by the connector. You can use macros in your filenames dynamically to include information such as identifiers and timestamps. For more information, see Macros.

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Message

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Logging

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Miscellaneous

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Automation Tab

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Automation Settings

Settings related to the automatic processing of files by the connector.
SettingDescription
SendWhether messages arriving at the connector are automatically processed.

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Performance

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Alerts Tab

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SLAs Tab

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Using the Designer

The visual designer is only available for CSV, PSV, TSV, and simple XML files. Below is an example of a simple XML document as the source file: 
<actor table="actor">
  <actor_id key="true">124455</actor_id>
  <first_name>Bob</first_name>
  <last_name>Smith</last_name>
</actor>
This source file might be paired with the following CSV document as the destination file: 
id,first name,last name,time
124455,Bob,Smith,2017-07-18T17:38:53-04:00
When these files are configured as the source and destination files, the designer displays rows in the Source column for each row in the source file (actor_id, first_name, and last_name). For each field in the source, use the dropdown to select the appropriate Destination column. The application automatically attempts to match the source and destination fields based on the column names. In the above example, the actor_id row would automatically be matched with the id column. Mapping Designer

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Using the Code View

The Code view provides the ability to generate the mapping template manually using Script. This allows for more granular control over the possible input and output formats. The code view defines how the destination file looks once rendered, with Script elements dynamically filling in the template with values from the source document. Script elements all start with an arc prefix: for example, <arc:set>. Any content in the code view that is not Script is included as part of the output file. Script supports navigating complicated XML structures to parse out values from the Source File. The xmlDOMSearch operation takes an xpath as input and loads the XML structure at the given path. This operation loops for each instance of the xpath found in the source document: to load the entire document and avoid looping, provide the root element of the XML source as input to xmlDOMSearch. For example: 
<arc:call op=xmlDOMSearch?xpath=/root>
  <!-- Inside this operation call the parsed XML elements can be accessed -->
</arc:call>
Once the XML document is loaded, the xpath formatter supports reading out values from the XML at the specified xpath. This formatter accepts absolute xpaths as well as xpaths relative to the path loaded by xmlDOMSearch. The xpath formatter, like all formatters, can only be used in square brackets []. For example: 
<arc:call op="xmlDOMSearch?xpath=/root/author">
  [xpath('name')]
</arc:call>
Take the following simple XML as an example input to the above script: 
<root>
  <author>
    <name>Stephen King</name>
  </author>
  <author>
    <name>Kurt Vonnegut</name>
  </author>
</root>
In this example, the xmlDOMSearch operation loops over each author element in the root. Within each author loop, the value from the name element is read as content in the output file. The output file in this case would look like this: 
Stephen King
Kurt Vonnegut

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Templating Output Data

The Code view serves as a template of the output file, and Script fills in the values to the defined template. As a simple example, if data is formatted as comma-separated values, these commas can be included as part of the Code view to provide structure to the Script functions. Therefore, you can generate more complex CSV files from more complicated XML structures than the Designer mode allows. For example, take the following XML, which has nested elements that prevent the use of Designer mode: 
<actor table="actor">
  <actor_id key="true">12445</actor_id>
  <name>
    <first_name>Viggo</first_name>
    <last_name>Mortensen</last_name>
  </name>
  <actor_id key="true">12522</actor_id>
  <name>
    <first_name>Gal</first_name>
    <last_name>Gadot</last_name>
  </name>
</actor>
The nested elements can be retrieved by passing the appropriate paths to Script’s xpath formatter. These formatters can be placed in commas and after header names to provide the desired CSV structure, and an additional csvescape formatter ensures that the values are properly quoted: 
id,first name,last name
<arc:call op="xmlDOMSearch?xpath=actor">
[xpath('actor_id') | csvescape],[xpath('name/first_name') | csvescape],[xpath('name/last_name') | csvescape]
</arc:call>
You can generate a wide range of text files with this mix of templating data and Script calls.

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Additional Scripting Features

Since full Script is available in Code view, you might want to leverage Script Operations in the template. For example, if the source file only includes the Id of an item in the database, but you need the actual item name, you can use the dbQuery operation to look up the name for the corresponding Id. Script also supports conditional logic in a mapping template. The arc:if keyword is one of many keywords available to help with performing conditional logic in templates. For example, if the source file contains information about customers in QuickBooks, you might want to perform different business logic for customers with an outstanding balance versus customers who have paid in full. A simple example of this use case might look like the following: 
<arc:set item="Customer" attr="paidinfull" value="true" />
<arc:call op="xmlDOMSearch?xpath=Customer">
  <arc:if exp="[xpath('balance')] > 0">
    <arc:set item="Customer" attr="paidinfull" value="false" />
  </arc:if>
</arc:call>
id,first name,last name, paid in full
[xpath('customer_id') | csvescape],[xpath('first_name') | csvescape],[xpath('last_name') | csvescape],[Customer.paidinfull]

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Macros

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Examples