850 and 855 are Ansi X.12 message types alright. I've been working with
an EDI processing program company (we made EDI/SOL for the
AS/400...those were the days) in my previous life and if memory serves
me well I wasn't at all impressed with the quality of the X.12
documentation way back when (many moons ago). Just a hint: the
documentation describes the messages in their full glory with all the
optional tags and taggroups, what Baker and Taylor may have done is to
take that standard and customize it to best fit their needs (i.e. remove
all the overhead).
What they also may have done is to remove even mandatory tags and groups
(or worse add their own tags), as there is no real punishment for doing
so (basically EDI messages are flat files) especially if Baker and
Taylor are big enough to force the weaker parties to accept messages
which are officially flawed. However, without more details or official
documentation at hand that is very hard to tell.
The messages themselves are enveloped in other tags which basically
contain some meta-data (how many messages are in here, that kind of
stuff) and the outer tags concern routing information (to whom, from
who, date and time of sending) and again meta-data (how many message
groups, how many messages).
The files you are looking at may include these enveloping messages
(again, without more details, hard to tell).
I see EDI messages as basically rudimentary XML files (or if you will
forefathers of XML), but without the mandatory opening and closing
tag-pairs; only the opening tags are present and mandatory. Some of the
tags are mandatory depending on other tags and these dependencies are
described in the manuals you have. Within these tags there are groups of
(what we called) data elements: the smallest piece of transferred
information which are separated by characters (delimiters as we called
them). There are EDI standards (EDIFACT for instance) which define fixed
groups of data elements which are separated by different characters, it
is too long ago for me to remember if X12 also had these data groups.
Anyway, this is in an overview over the landscape of EDI as the crow
might see it (however this crow might be a bit short sighted due to his
age, your mileage may vary).
Just my 2 data elements,
Cor
-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike
Sent: donderdag 28 mei 2009 5:03
To: RPG programming on the IBM i / System i
Subject: Re: EDI Questions -- Is Someone Available Offline to Get Me
Started?
I have Baker and Taylor 850 and 855 quite possibly? Does that make
sense?
On May 27, 2009, at 8:13 PM, Pete Hall wrote:
Mike wrote:
I have a project from a client to setup EDI. While I understand EDI
and how
it should work. The information I have been given from the client
isn't
enough for me to get started. Is there someone that would be
willing to work
with me briefly off-line to get my feet on the ground and running
with it?
I have been given three flat-files and EDI layout documentation. The
documentation doesn't seem to match the file layouts, however.
Either I am
misunderstanding something or I am missing something.
Please contact me offline. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi Mike
If it's X12 I may be able to help.
--
Pete Hall
pete@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--
This is the RPG programming on the IBM i / System i (RPG400-L)
mailing list
To post a message email: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/rpg400-l
or email: RPG400-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/rpg400-l.
midrange.com
