Re: [servicemix-user] Files binding: processing non-XML files

[John L. Simpson (sent by Nabble.com)]

I second Sa�d's query.

I've just switched from using Mule, because no-one on that project's forum could explain how to meet another common requirement (specifically, how to set message properties based on the value of my XML content). In ServiceMix, however, I haven't even got that far - I'm stuck at the very start of the process chain.

In Mule, I was able to easily convert non-XML input files into XML content by using that framework's ObjectToXml transformer on the input file's endpoint. But it seems that ServiceMix simply does not allow non-XML data as file input. (The source code supports Sa�d's conclusion).

I am fully for JBI and the concept of a normalized message. However, in the real world, we are faced with applications which spit out non-XML data. And I'm not talking about awkward binary files - just plain-text ASCII files which lack XML markup and perhaps contain some illegal characters. (In my case, the files contain a few control characters like x00 and x03).

I want to take those files, strip out the invalid characters (easily done in Groovy), transform the rest of it into XML and then do something useful with it. But, before I can achieve any of that, I need to get the data onto the bus in the first place.

Yes, I could write a small preprocessor to wrap the plain text inside XML tags before injecting the data into ServiceMix. But then I lose all the benefits of the ServiceMix framework, including transaction support.

Alternatively, I might even be able to write a custom ServiceMix component to do the job. But I'm new to ServiceMix, and I'd feel a lot safer using a standard component, if only someone could please explain how!

I cannot believe that Sa�d and I are the only two people who have non-XML input - surely this is a common circumstance? Are we missing something in our understanding?

Thanks, John.

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Re: [servicemix-user] Files binding: processing non-XML files