eiConsole v.24R1
Tutorial & Interface

eiConsole – Advanced Topics

Using Processors

Note: The Quick Start, Foundation, Topology and Data Mapping & Transformation tutorials should be completed before proceeding with the Data Mapping & Transformation Tutorials.

Overview

This Interface and related tutorial demonstrate the use of Processors in Route configurations. We’ll build on the concepts from Creating a Simple Route to incorporate a single Processor to perform Base64-encoding of messages. If you have not yet walked through that tutorial or are not familiar with the concepts introduced, we recommend you step through it first.

Before You Begin

Using Processors
Working Directory

Download the Using-Processors-Working-Directory.zip file with the sample Working Directory and unzip it on your computer to a convenient place. In our case, it’s c:\Users\{USER _NAME}\PilotFish eiConsole Working Directories\Using Processors where {USER_NAME} is the user’s name.

Open the eiConsole, browse to your Using Processors directory, and open it. The fully configured Using Processors – Example route is included in the Working Directory. Your Route File Management screen will open, as shown below.

Next, follow the tutorial and walk through it step-by-step. You may check your work against the provided Route (Sample Data).

Creating a New Route in the eiConsole

Begin by creating a new Route in the eiConsole. We recommend naming it Using Processors to fit with the title of this exercise.

Double-click on the Using Processors

Сonfigure a single Source and Target using a Directory/File Listener and Directory/File Transport. These steps are identical to those covered in “Creating a Simple Route”:

Processors can be added after the Listener stage and/or before the Transport stage. Processors are components that perform a variety of operations, ranging from decompression to applying a Regular Expression to message contents. For this exercise, we will be adding one to Base64 to encode the message contents so that files delivered via the configured Directory / File Transport are Base64-encoded versions of those picked up by the Directory / File Listener.

Add the Processor

To add the Processor, select the Listener (second) stage:

Next, select the Processor Configuration tab:

How to Add or Remove Processors

You can now add or remove Processors using the respective buttons, as well as re-order them using the Move Up and Move Down buttons. Processors are executed in the order listed in the table, so changing the order may sometimes be necessary. To add a processor, click Add Processor:

This will open a dialog showing all of the available Processors in a drop-down. Select Base64 (Output) from the list:

Also, you can find the desired processor with the Module Search.

All the processors are subdivided into categories.

The Filter field allows the users to search through the processors’ names or descriptions if the Include description text checkbox is enabled.

Name the Processor

We can now provide a name for our Processor. For this exercise, we’ll use Base64 Encoder:

Once finished, click Add. You should now see the Processor listed in the table:

Most Processors require some configuration, but this particular one does not. Depending on your eiConsole version, you may have an Execute Processor option available, which allows you to specify if the Processor actually runs or not. Leave this option checked.

Testing the Processor

Our Route is now configured. Switch to the Testing Mode. Place People.xml into the polling directory. This file can be found in:

c:\Users\{USER _NAME}\PilotFish eiConsole Working Directories\Using Processors\data

The polling directory is:

c:\Users\{USER _NAME}\PilotFish eiConsole Working Directories\Using Processors\in

Click the Execute Test:

Viewing the Output at Any Stage

You can view the output of any particular stage by selecting it first from one of the main Stages in the main eiConsole table (Listener, Source Transform, etc.), then selecting the sub-stage, and then clicking the View Stage Output button. In our case, we have a Listener and the Processor under the Listener main stage. Of course, the contents of the stage will vary based on what you’ve provided for your input directory, but here is the output of the Listener stage from using a simple XML sample:

Selecting the Processor stage and viewing that output shows the following:

As you can see, the second stage is after the Base64-encoding Processor has completed. If you check the output directory, you should see a corresponding file. Look into the output directory:

c:\Users\{USER _NAME}\PilotFish eiConsole Working Directories\Using Processors\out

This concludes the tutorial. Move on to the next tutorial.