Flatpack

Since Camel 2.1

The Flatpack component ships with the Flatpack data format that can be used to format between fixed width or delimited text messages to a List of rows as Map.

  • marshal = from List<Map<String, Object>> to OutputStream (can be converted to String)

  • unmarshal = from java.io.InputStream (such as a File or String) to a java.util.List as an org.apache.camel.component.flatpack.DataSetList instance.
    The result of the operation will contain all the data. If you need to process each row one by one you can split the exchange, using Splitter.

Notice: The Flatpack library does currently not support header and trailers for the marshal operation.

Options

The Flatpack dataformat supports 8 options, which are listed below.

Name Default Java Type Description

definition (common)

String

The flatpack pzmap configuration file. Can be omitted in simpler situations, but its preferred to use the pzmap.

fixed (common)

false

Boolean

Delimited or fixed. Is by default false = delimited.

delimiter (common)

,

String

The delimiter char (could be ; , or similar).

ignoreFirstRecord (common)

true

Boolean

Whether the first line is ignored for delimited files (for the column headers). Is by default true.

allowShortLines (common)

false

Boolean

Allows for lines to be shorter than expected and ignores the extra characters.

ignoreExtraColumns (common)

false

Boolean

Allows for lines to be longer than expected and ignores the extra characters.

textQualifier (advanced)

String

If the text is qualified with a character. Uses quote character by default.

parserFactoryRef (advanced)

String

References to a custom parser factory to lookup in the registry.

Usage

To use the data format, instantiate an instance and invoke the marshal or unmarshal operation in the route builder:

  FlatpackDataFormat fp = new FlatpackDataFormat();
  fp.setDefinition(new ClassPathResource("INVENTORY-Delimited.pzmap.xml"));
  ...
  from("file:order/in").unmarshal(df).to("seda:queue:neworder");

The sample above will read files from the order/in folder and unmarshal the input using the Flatpack configuration file INVENTORY-Delimited.pzmap.xml that configures the structure of the files. The result is a DataSetList object we store on the SEDA queue.

FlatpackDataFormat df = new FlatpackDataFormat();
df.setDefinition(new ClassPathResource("PEOPLE-FixedLength.pzmap.xml"));
df.setFixed(true);
df.setIgnoreFirstRecord(false);

from("seda:people").marshal(df).convertBodyTo(String.class).to("jms:queue:people");

In the code above we marshal the data from an Object representation as a List of rows as Maps. The rows as Map contains the column name as the key, and the corresponding value. This structure can be created in Java code from e.g., a processor. We marshal the data according to the Flatpack format and convert the result as a String object and store it on a JMS queue.

Dependencies

To use Flatpack in your camel routes, you need to add a dependency on camel-flatpack which implements this data format.

If you use maven, you could add the following to your pom.xml, substituting the version number for the latest release.

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
  <artifactId>camel-flatpack</artifactId>
  <version>x.x.x</version>
</dependency>

Spring Boot Auto-Configuration

When using flatpack with Spring Boot make sure to use the following Maven dependency to have support for auto configuration:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.camel.springboot</groupId>
  <artifactId>camel-flatpack-starter</artifactId>
  <version>x.x.x</version>
  <!-- use the same version as your Camel core version -->
</dependency>

The component supports 13 options, which are listed below.

Name Description Default Type

camel.component.flatpack.autowired-enabled

Whether autowiring is enabled. This is used for automatic autowiring options (the option must be marked as autowired) by looking up in the registry to find if there is a single instance of matching type, which then gets configured on the component. This can be used for automatic configuring JDBC data sources, JMS connection factories, AWS Clients, etc.

true

Boolean

camel.component.flatpack.bridge-error-handler

Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler, which mean any exceptions (if possible) occurred while the Camel consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages, or the likes, will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. Important: This is only possible if the 3rd party component allows Camel to be alerted if an exception was thrown. Some components handle this internally only, and therefore bridgeErrorHandler is not possible. In other situations we may improve the Camel component to hook into the 3rd party component and make this possible for future releases. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions, that will be logged at WARN or ERROR level and ignored.

false

Boolean

camel.component.flatpack.enabled

Whether to enable auto configuration of the flatpack component. This is enabled by default.

Boolean

camel.component.flatpack.lazy-start-producer

Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing.

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.allow-short-lines

Allows for lines to be shorter than expected and ignores the extra characters.

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.definition

The flatpack pzmap configuration file. Can be omitted in simpler situations, but its preferred to use the pzmap.

String

camel.dataformat.flatpack.delimiter

The delimiter char (could be ; , or similar).

,

String

camel.dataformat.flatpack.enabled

Whether to enable auto configuration of the flatpack data format. This is enabled by default.

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.fixed

Delimited or fixed. Is by default false = delimited.

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.ignore-extra-columns

Allows for lines to be longer than expected and ignores the extra characters.

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.ignore-first-record

Whether the first line is ignored for delimited files (for the column headers). Is by default true.

true

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.parser-factory-ref

References to a custom parser factory to lookup in the registry.

String

camel.dataformat.flatpack.text-qualifier

If the text is qualified with a character. Uses quote character by default.

String
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