Writing Data - Introduction

These cookbook articles are step-by-step recipes for getting data out of an integration. Each one is a scenario a Writer is asked to handle that its setup screen does not make obvious.

They are worked examples, not reference. The Writer transforms themselves — every field on every tab — are described in the User Guide, and there are further writer examples in the training Homework and in the training manuals.

Database Writer

• Using SQL Commands
  • How to use SQL commands and server-side functions in a Database Writer, with and without field references, and where in the grid they are typed.

Xml Writer

• Writing Xml Documents
  • Four things the Writer's XPath expressions are asked to do that the field grid does not make obvious: which path names the repeating node and which names its container, writing a value as an attribute rather than as element content, using an attribute path to build separate nodes of the same name, and building into a template document.

JSON Writer

• Writing JSON Documents
  • Building a nested document out of flat rows with JPaths, written to a file, and why the reader's field types decide whether a value comes out quoted.

Writing JSON to a webservice is a different problem and is covered in the Webservices section, because everything specific to it is in the request rather than in the document:

• JSON Writer - Flat Data
  • The same six contacts, posted to Xero, with a field choosing per record between an insert and an update.
• Consuming the Response
  • Reading what the far end sent back into the IMan dataset.