Designing collaborations for bidirectional scripts

IBM WebSphere(R) Business Integration Server Express supports bidirectional scripts. This support is in a standard Windows(R)-type bidirectional format (logical left to right). (Examples of languages involved in bidirectional design are Hebrew and Arabic.) Because of this support, all collaborations also support bidirectional scripts. However, data entering a collaboration may come from:

Bidirectional format inconsistencies cause comparisons within a collaboration to return incorrect results. These types of errors can be avoided by following these guidelines:

Enabling connectors for bidirectional scripts

To enable a connector to support a bidirectional script:

  1. Set the BiDiTransformation property to true on the Standard tab of Connector Configurator Express. (See Figure 24 .) Setting the value to true allows the connector designer to display the other parameters that support bidirectional scripts for the connector.
    Figure 24. The BiDiTransformation property in the Connector Configurator
    The figure shows  the System Manager connector designer panel displaying a sample connector. The Bidi.Transformation property is set to true; and the dialog displays all the associated BiDi properties, which are, in this case, BiDi.Application, BiDiBroker, and BiDi.Metadata.
  2. Specify the bidirectional options for the following: Each property displays a dialog (see Figure 25) in which you choose the bidirectional parameters to support. (See Table 25 for a description of the parameters.)
    Figure 25. Bidirectional script parameter input dialog
    The  figure shows the Input dialog box. There are five drop-down menus in the dialog. The topmost is for the Type parameter. Beneath Type is the Direction menu. The third menu is the Symmetric Swapping menu. The fourth menu is the Shaping menu and the last menu is the Numeric Shaping menu. At the bottom of the dialog are 3 buttons: OK, Reset to Default, and Cancel.
    Table 25. Values for bidirectional format strings
    Letter position Purpose Values Description Default
    1 Type I Implicit (Logical) I
    V Visual
    2 Direction L Left to Right L
    R Right to Left
    3 Symmetric Swapping Y Symmetric swapping is on Y
    N Symmetric swapping is off
    4 Shaping Y Text is shaped N
    N Text is not shaped
    5 Numeric Shaping H Hindi N
    C Contextual
    N Nominal
  3. Deploy the connector. For more information about deploying connectors, see the System Implementation Guide.

Enabling collaborations for bidirectional scripts using Access Interface

WebSphere Business Integration Server Express supports bidirectional scripts for communication links from an outside environment. The external systems use Access Interface to connect to WebSphere Business Integration Server Express. Bidirectional script data from the source is converted to the standard Windows-type bidirectional format for processing. The data is then converted back to its original format for communication with the source.

Since configuration, and not development, is necessary for this bidirectional conversion, the System Administrator rather than the developer is responsible for supporting this feature.

You can define the properties for the collaboration template in Process Designer Express and provide values for these properties at deployment in System Manager.

For more information on setting collaboration object properties, see the System Implementation Guide.

Configuring the collaboration template for bidirectional data with Access Interface

To define one bidirectional format for all business object data passed through all collaboration ports, add the following property:

BiDi_AI_Application --The name is not case sensitive. Valid values are 5-letter strings specifying the bidirectional format of business object data passed between the external application and the collaboration. For a list of valid values for this property, see Table 25.

To define different bidirectional formats for business object data passed to the collaboration through different ports, add the following property for each port:

BiDi_<port name>_AI_Application -- The name is not case sensitive. Valid values are 5-letter strings specifying the bidirectional format of business object data passed between the external application and the collaboration. For a list of valid values for this property, see Table 25.

Note:
: If the user does not define a specific bidirectional format property for a collaboration port, the general BiDi_AI_Application is used at run time. If neither is defined, no transformation occurs.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2004, 2005