Schema Processing

Introduction

When using an uploaded or custom-defined schema, in certain circumstances data may be converted during processing. This page describes when and how data is converted.

Names of Fields and Nodes

Names of fields and nodes are converted to valid NCNames, following the XML standard.

Names with Spaces

Spaces included as part of a field or node name are replaced with an underscore (_).

Special Characters in Schemas

Special characters in uploaded or custom-defined schemas are processed differently depending on the schema type. These conversions are limited to the schema structures only, and do not affect the actual data.

The handling of special characters depends on the schema type, as described in the table below. Special characters include, but are not limited to, these non-alphanumeric characters:

. _ - $ # @ ?

However, note that support for special characters by Cloud Studio is limited by support for special characters by the schema type itself. For example, including a $, #, @, or ? in an XML schema field or node name is not supported because those special characters are not supported by XML.

CSV Files with Headers

If providing a CSV file with a header row as a sample schema file, these rules are applied to generate column names:

• Special characters are replaced with a question mark (?).
• Spaces are replaced with an underscore (_).
• If a column name is blank, it is replaced with f1, f2, f3, and so on.
• If a column name starts with a number, it is prefixed with an underscore (_).
• If a column name is repeated, it is appended with 2, 3, 4, and so on.

Data Types

These sections describe Jitterbit's support of certain types of data.

Unlimited-Precision Data Types

Unlimited-precision data types, such as XML decimal, are converted to double data types and therefore have a precision limit imposed on them that could, as a result, truncate data.

The precision limit is within the range of the minimum and maximum values of a signed long, which is –2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647. If outside of this range, consider using a string data type instead to avoid truncating data.

Non-Primitive Data Types

Primitive data types including string, integer, long, date, float, double, and boolean are fully supported. When creating a new custom flat or hierarchical schema or editing any schema, these data types are available to choose in the Type dropdown. For new custom schemas, non-primitive data types such as datetime are not supported.

However, non-primitive data types are supported for schemas that are automatically generated from a server-based connector or were mirrored from such a schema. After they are generated, such schemas can also be manually edited in the custom schema editor. If the schema contains any non-primitive data types, these are also listed in the Type dropdown when editing such a schema.

Null Values

Fields that have a null value are included in the resulting data schema despite having no data. As they also have no defined data type, these fields are treated as having a string data type.

Namespaces in XML Schemas

Namespaces in XML schemas are supported. If more than one namespace is used in an XML schema, the Harmony Agent converts the XML schema to multiple XSD files during processing.

Troubleshooting

Due to changes made in Harmony versions 10.25 and 10.27, you may see different behavior in projects created prior to these releases. These changes affect XML schemas that have been mirrored and are most likely to impact mappings that use XML functions that involve namespaces, such as the SelectNodes() function. In this case, mappings that were previously valid may now be invalid with an error related to the syntax of the XML function.

Compare the differences between this example mirrored XML schema prior to 10.25 with one created in 10.25 or later:

• Example XML Schema Prior to 10.25: In projects created prior to 10.25, mirrored XML schemas use the default namespace prefix for XML documents: xsi. As shown highlighted in red above, xmlns:xsi declares the namespace and unmapped fields are displayed in the schema with the attribute xsi:nil="true".
• Example XML Schema in 10.25 and Later: In projects created in 10.25 and later and highlighted in green above, mirrored XML schemas use the namespace prefix ns to declare a qualified namespace. Unmapped fields are not displayed in the schema.

In versions 10.25 and 10.26, if you imported a project with a mirrored XML schema that was created prior to 10.25, the schema was reprocessed and changed to use the qualified namespace prefix.

As of version 10.27, imported projects whose mirrored XML schemas were created prior to 10.25 retain the default XML schema namespace prefix so that the schema is identical to that when it was created. This change means that any pre-10.25 projects that are imported into the current version should function as originally designed.

To force a refresh of a pre-10.25 XML schema to use the updated namespace prefix, you can regenerate the schema by refreshing it or reconfiguring the activity that provides the schema.