Google Groups : microsoft.public.biztalk.general

Google Groups : microsoft.public.biztalk.general

This news post describes a very similar format that I have to follow to commicate with Freddie Mac's Desktop Underwriter system. It looks like I will be writing a custom adapter to handle this (ugh!).

I may be using this:
GotDotNet User Sample: Biztalk Server Adapter Framework 1.1 with VB.NET support FINAL

This link may be useful to me in this process as well:
http://www.dixie.sk/blog/post/1/16

More to come...

-j

You cannot use a pass-through pipeline to receive a file in an orchestration in BizTalk Server 2004

You cannot use a pass-through pipeline to receive a file in an orchestration in BizTalk Server 2004

This is an interesting issue. It doesn't make sense to use the xml receive pipeline to receive a flat-file, but there it is...

-j

Handling Default Namespaces

Handling Default Namespaces

This article was useful to me in figuring out how to use default namespaces in xslt stylesheets.

-j

MCSD for Microsoft .NET Certification Requirements

MCSD for Microsoft .NET Certification Requirements

Innovative Architects gives bonuses and gets Microsoft Partner points for employee certifications. I want to keep track of this page because it is likely to be the track I would take to Microsoft Certification.

-j

Visual Studio 2005: Technical Resources for Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005: Technical Resources for Visual Studio 2005

I loaded a virtual pc with VS2005 Beta 2. I'll be coming back to this site to get some guided tours of new features.

I watched this webcast and was impressed with it:

Whidbey WebCast

-j

Matt's Musings on Messaging - Send XML to a SQL stored procedure (RELOADED)

Matt's Musings on Messaging - Send XML to a SQL stored procedure (RELOADED)

This sample looks promising. I need to do some fairly complex CRUD operations on a table to keep track of attributes related to a business transaction. Instead of separating create/update/delete statements into separate ports, I want to do it all at once using an xml fragment that I will parse in a stored procedure.

I would use an update-gram, but the only output generated is a "success" message. I want the flexibility of returning the table data post-update back to biztalk. This requirement is not supported in an update-gram.

-j

XSD Object Code Generator

XSD Object Code Generator

This tool generates a MUCH better class representation of an .xsd schema. The output is a lot easier to consume than the output generated by the default xsd.exe tool that ships with .NET. I wish that the project I am currently working on had used this tool instead of xsd.exe to generate the classes being used.

XML - Prefix problem with XML/XSL

XML - Prefix problem with XML/XSL

I was running into a little bit of a snaffu with using custom xslt in a BizTalk map. All I had to do was reference the appropriate namespace in the map and voila! If only I had discovered that three or four hours ago! :o(

-j

XSL Transformations

XSL Transformations

This is a really good resource for xsl transformations. One of the useful things to me is the section about using xsl:element and xsl:attribute when transforming from xml to xml.

http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/chapters/ch17.html#d1e6328

I had an interesting case where I needed to transform an "extensible" database model into a more usable xml structure.

This is the original output of a SQL Server stored proc using For Xml Auto:

<root>
<transaction transactionid="1">
<vendor vendordescription="DU">
<status statusdescription="Created">
<transactionattribute attributeid="1" attributekey="TestAttribute1"
attributevalue="TestValue1" attributedatatype="String">
<transactionattribute attributeid="2" attributekey="TestAttribute2"
attributevalue="TestValue2" attributedatatype="String">
</transactionattribute>
</transactionattribute>
</status>
</vendor>
</transaction>
</root>

I needed the output to be in a format somewhat like this:

<transactions>
<transaction>
<transactionid>1</transactionid>
<vendorname>DU</vendorname>
<status>Created</status>
<testattribute1>TestValue1</testattribute1>
<testattribute2>TestValue2</testattribute2>
</transaction>
</transactions>

So, to accomplish this I created this xsl transformation script:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes" omit-xml-declaration="no" />
<xsl:template match="/">
<Transactions>
<Transaction>
<xsl:element name="TransactionID">
<xsl:value-of select="//Transaction/@TransactionID" />
</xsl:element>
<xsl:element name="VendorName">
<xsl:value-of select="//Vendor/@VendorDescription" />
</xsl:element>
<xsl:element name="Status">
<xsl:value-of select="//Status/@StatusDescription" />
</xsl:element>
<xsl:for-each select="//TransactionAttribute">
<xsl:element name="{@AttributeKey}">
<xsl:value-of select="@AttributeValue" />
</xsl:element>
</xsl:for-each>
</Transaction>
</Transactions>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

App.Config for BizTalk 2004

App.Config for BizTalk 2004

Basic info. about using .config data in Biztalk 2004.