Does Field encapsulation work with VRL?

[Jim Kosloskey]

All,

Cloverleaf(R) 5.2.

I seem to be having an issue with getting Cloverleaf(R) to actually place my field encapsulation characters defined at the VRL field level when the incoming data contains the subfield separator.

For example, my VRL definition says the subfield separator is a comma (there are really no subfields defined only a fiel), and the encapsulation pair to use is Double Quote, Double Quote.

When my input is – data,data; I would expect to see “data,data”.

What I am seeing is data,data. That is not what I expected.

Does anyone know if this is supposed to work as I have expressed above in Cloverleaf(R) 5.2 (or any release of Cloverleaf(R) supporting VRL)?

Or – do I have my configuration hosed?

Thanks,

Jim Kosloskey

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 60 years IT – old fart.

Topic

[Jim Kosloskey]

Since no one has replied, I am guessing no one has tried this.

I will report that this does not work in 5.2 or 5.5 (thanks to Harry McEwen at Oakwood who assisted me in testing this on his 5.5 release).

So it appears if you have an outbound VRL defined and the inbound data from which you are building the outbound VRL has the subfield separator character included in the text, the outbound VRL will be built incorrectly. The receiving system will not like what you send.

As a matter of fact, if you then input the file you just created in error into an Xlate and try to refer to the erroneous field/sub-field, you will not get the correct data.

I will try to report this as a bug to support but we are on 5.2.

Harry has indicated he will report as a 5.5 bug.

I hope this does not bite anyone until it is fixed.

Thanks,

Jim Kosloskey

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 60 years IT – old fart.

[Charlie Bursell]

Jim:

It looks as if you are trying to build a CSV file.  The problem with CSV is that there are many rules besides escapng.  I use the csv package that is part of tcllib.  It will read or create CSV records.

[Jim Kosloskey]

Charlie,

Thanks.

I have read your previous posts regarding that package.

However, isn’t that what the VRL configurator supposed to do?

What I am attempting appears to be rather simple. If this cannot be handled properly, my only conclusion has to be the functionality of the VRL is not working properly and nees to be repaired.

I have no problem writing Tcl code to accomplish something the toolset was not intended to do. I do take issue with writing Tcl to do something the toolset should accomplish.

I could see resorting to Tcl if I were attempting something really complex that perhaps the toolset would not accomodate but again I think what I am attempting is rather basic.

Thanks again – and it becomes necessary I might need to use the CSV package.

Jim Kosloskey

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 60 years IT – old fart.

[Charlie Bursell]

I don’t disagree.  I was peaking of a work around if this is a bug.  I haven’t had the time to test it myself.

[Author]

Replies