IM Relationship Resolution Information Center, Version 4.2

UMF file conversion utility script file sections

The script file for the UMF file conversion utility defines how data in a data source file is converted to UMF. The script file contains several sections and parameters within those sections. The first four sections, GLOBAL, RECORD, IMPORT, and EXPORT, are configured during your initial deployment and are not likely to change. The last section, TRANSFORM, contains the parameters that you might want to customize.

[GLOBAL] section parameters

The GLOBAL section includes parameters tha apply to the UMF file conversion utility overall.

STARTWITH
Indicates the record that the UMF file conversion utility starts processing with.

The default value for this parameter is 1. If you are importing a set of records that contains a set of field names as the first record, you might want to skip that record and start with the second record in the set.

For example, to have the UMF file conversion utility skip the first record, specify a value of 2:
STARTWITH=2

[RECORD] section parameters

The RECORD section includes parameters that define the structure of the definition file for either the incoming data source file or the output UMF file. You can add multiple RECORD sections, each of them numbered; typically, RECORD1 is used for incoming data source files and RECORD2 is used for the output UMF files.

DEF
Specifies the file that contains the data structure of either the incoming file or output file. You must specify the full path and file name.

There is no default value.

For example, if the [RECORD] section that contains this parameter refers to an output UMF file, then this defines the path and file name for the output file name:
DEF=path\outputvariables.def
NAME
Specifies an alias for the definition file that is referenced in this [RECORD] section.

Because you type this value many times as you create this script file, you might want to specify a short string.

The default value for an incoming file is In; the default value for an output file is Out. Any string value is valid. To specify that the definition file is an incoming file, type the following in this section:
NAME=In

[IMPORT] section parameters

The IMPORT section tells the UMF File Conversion Utility which RECORD section to use and what type of data to expect. You can add multiple [IMPORT] sections, each of them uniquely numbered, for example, [IMPORT1]. Subsequent keys can use the unique number to refer to this [IMPORT] section.
RECORD
Specifies the [RECORD] section of the script file to use when importing data.

There is no default value.

To specify the [RECORD1] section, type:
RECORD=1
TYPE
Specifies the structure of the incoming data.

Because the UMF file conversion utility only works with fixed width files, the only valid value for this parameter is FW.

To indicate a fixed width input file, type:

TYPE=FW

[TRANSFORM] section parameters

The TRANSFORM section defines how the conversion utility transforms incoming data before sending it out. TRANSFORM section parameters are divided into a settings parameter, and transform parameters. The IMPORTER parameter defines the transform settings. The beginseg, tagvalue and endseg, parameters define the format of the data transformation and the remainder of the transforms define how the data is transformed. Transform parameters modify affect each input record.
IMPORTER
This setting parameter specifies which IMPORT section to transform.

There is no default value.

To specify the [IMPORT1] section, type:
IMPORTER=1
beginseg
Indicates the beginning of a new UMF segment.

All calls to tagvalue place values within the TRANSFORM section.

You can use this key to include only incoming record segments that contain specific tags.

For example, to specify that a LAST_NAME tag is required in order to create a UMF_ENTITIY segment, type:
beginseg UMF_ENTITY, Requires(LAST_NAME)
tagvalue
Specifies the name and the corresponding values of new UMF tags.
To create a UMF tag called NUM_VALUE that contains the social security number value contained with in the input file, type:
tagvalue ’NUM_VALUE’,In.SocialSecNum
endseg
Specifies the end of a UMF segment
To end a UMF segment, type:
endseg
append
Adds text or field data to the end of a field.
To put the content of the StreetName field from incoming data to the end of the Addr1 field where you are combining all street address information, type:
append In.StreetName,Out.Addr1
atrim
Deletes all spaces from the beginning and end of the field.

This key performs the function of both ltrim and rtrim keys.

To delete spaces the beginning and end of a field, type:
atrim
autoinc
Automatically increments a value in a field by 1.

You can use this key to create unique numbers for each record. You can also specify a value to indicate the number you want to start with.

By default, numbering starts with 0.

To create a field called docref that contains an automatically incremented value that starts at 35, type:

autoinc Out.docref, 35 
copy
Copies characters from one field to another.

You must specify the input field you want to copy from and the output field you want to copy to.

To copy the contents of a field called StreetName to a field called Addr1, type:
copy In.StreetName, Out.Addr1
ctrim
Replaces two or more contiguous spaces with a single space anywhere within a string.
To delete extra spaces within the Name field, type:
ctrim In.Name
ifeq
Performs the next command in a sequence, if the specified value is the same as the contents of the incoming field.

To check for a Y value in the Office field of each record, and if a Y is present to replace the Y with a P, type:

ifeq In.Office,Y 
replacechar In.Office,Y,P
ifneq
Performs the next command in a sequence, if the specified value is not the same as the contents of the incoming field.

This is the opposite of the ifeq key.

To update current employee records with new location codes indicating whether they are active, on leave, or on vacation, but not update retired employee records (status=R), type:
ifneq In.Status,R 
copy In.LocCode, Out.LocCode
left
Extracts a substring from the left of a field.

You can specify how many characters you want to extract.

To transform a telephone number to only include the first 3 digits, type:
left In.Phone,3 
lower
Converts a string to lowercase.
To convert all uppercase letters to lowercase in the Name field, type:
lower In.Name
lpad
Adds spaces to the left end of the field to make sure the field contains at least the specified number of characters.
To add spaces to the left of a Name field value that contains less than 5 characters, type:
lpad In.Name,5
ltrim
Deletes all spaces from the beginning (left end) of a field.

To remove all spaces from the left side of values in the Name field, type:

ltrim In.Name
prepend
Adds text or field data to the beginning of a field.
To add (702) to each value in the PhoneNumber field, type:
prepend '(702) ' In.PhoneNumber
removechar
Removes all occurrences of a string within a field to clean up unwanted characters.
To remove the / character from values in the Date field, type:
removechar In.Date,/
replacechar
Replaces all occurrences of a string with another string.

You can use this key to create standard data or change data in a consistent way.

To replace the / character with the - character in values in the Date field, type:
replacechar In.Date,/,-
right
Extracts a substring from the right of a field.

You can specify how many characters you want to extract.

To extract the last four digits from the SocialSecurity field, type:
right In.SocialSecurity,4 
rpad
Adds spaces to the right end of a field to make sure the field contains at least the specified number of characters.
To add spaces to the right of a name field value that contains less than 5 characters, type:
rpad In.Name,5
rtrim
Deletes all spaces from the end (right end) of a field.

To remove all spaces from the right side of values in the Name field, type:

rtrim In.Name
skip
Skips the record if the specified condition is true for the field.
You can specify the following conditions:
  • blank
  • !blank (not blank)
  • =
  • <=
  • >=
  • != (not equal)

To skip records whose State field value is not CA, type:

skip In.State,!=,CA
substr
Extracts a substring from a field and overwrites the old value in that field with the specified substring.

To extract the first two characters from the Status field and replace the current contents of that field with the extracted substring, type:

substr In.State,!=,CA
upper
Converts a string to uppercase.
To convert all lowercase letters to uppercase in the State field, type:
upper In.State


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Last updated: 2009