Flatpack Component

Table of Contents

URI format
URI Options
Examples
Message Headers
Message Body
Header and Trailer records
Using the endpoint

The Flatpack component supports fixed width and delimited file parsing via the FlatPack library. Notice: This component only supports consuming from flatpack files to Object model. You can not (yet) write from Object model to flatpack format.

Maven users will need to add the following dependency to their pom.xml for this component:

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

URI format

flatpack:[delim|fixed]:flatPackConfig.pzmap.xml[?options]

Or for a delimited file handler with no configuration file just use

flatpack:someName[?options]

You can append query options to the URI in the following format, ?option=value&option=value&…​

URI Options

The Flatpack component has no options.

The Flatpack component supports 27 endpoint options which are listed below:

{% raw %}

NameGroupDefaultJava TypeDescription

type

common

 

FlatpackType

Whether to use fixed or delimiter

resourceUri

common

 

String

Required URL for loading the flatpack mapping file from classpath or file system

allowShortLines

common

false

boolean

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

delimiter

common

,

char

The default character delimiter for delimited files.

ignoreExtraColumns

common

false

boolean

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

ignoreFirstRecord

common

true

boolean

Whether the first line is ignored for delimited files (for the column headers).

splitRows

common

true

boolean

Sets the Component to send each row as a separate exchange once parsed

textQualifier

common

 

char

The text qualifier for delimited files.

bridgeErrorHandler

consumer

false

boolean

Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler which mean any exceptions occurred while the consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages or the likes will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions that will be logged at WARN/ERROR level and ignored.

sendEmptyMessageWhenIdle

consumer

false

boolean

If the polling consumer did not poll any files you can enable this option to send an empty message (no body) instead.

exceptionHandler

consumer (advanced)

 

ExceptionHandler

To let the consumer use a custom ExceptionHandler. Notice if the option bridgeErrorHandler is enabled then this options is not in use. By default the consumer will deal with exceptions that will be logged at WARN/ERROR level and ignored.

exchangePattern

consumer (advanced)

 

ExchangePattern

Sets the exchange pattern when the consumer creates an exchange.

pollStrategy

consumer (advanced)

 

PollingConsumerPollStrategy

A pluggable org.apache.camel.PollingConsumerPollingStrategy allowing you to provide your custom implementation to control error handling usually occurred during the poll operation before an Exchange have been created and being routed in Camel.

synchronous

advanced

false

boolean

Sets whether synchronous processing should be strictly used or Camel is allowed to use asynchronous processing (if supported).

backoffErrorThreshold

scheduler

 

int

The number of subsequent error polls (failed due some error) that should happen before the backoffMultipler should kick-in.

backoffIdleThreshold

scheduler

 

int

The number of subsequent idle polls that should happen before the backoffMultipler should kick-in.

backoffMultiplier

scheduler

 

int

To let the scheduled polling consumer backoff if there has been a number of subsequent idles/errors in a row. The multiplier is then the number of polls that will be skipped before the next actual attempt is happening again. When this option is in use then backoffIdleThreshold and/or backoffErrorThreshold must also be configured.

delay

scheduler

500

long

Milliseconds before the next poll. You can also specify time values using units such as 60s (60 seconds) 5m30s (5 minutes and 30 seconds) and 1h (1 hour).

greedy

scheduler

false

boolean

If greedy is enabled then the ScheduledPollConsumer will run immediately again if the previous run polled 1 or more messages.

initialDelay

scheduler

1000

long

Milliseconds before the first poll starts. You can also specify time values using units such as 60s (60 seconds) 5m30s (5 minutes and 30 seconds) and 1h (1 hour).

runLoggingLevel

scheduler

TRACE

LoggingLevel

The consumer logs a start/complete log line when it polls. This option allows you to configure the logging level for that.

scheduledExecutorService

scheduler

 

ScheduledExecutorService

Allows for configuring a custom/shared thread pool to use for the consumer. By default each consumer has its own single threaded thread pool.

scheduler

scheduler

none

ScheduledPollConsumerScheduler

To use a cron scheduler from either camel-spring or camel-quartz2 component

schedulerProperties

scheduler

 

Map

To configure additional properties when using a custom scheduler or any of the Quartz2 Spring based scheduler.

startScheduler

scheduler

true

boolean

Whether the scheduler should be auto started.

timeUnit

scheduler

MILLISECONDS

TimeUnit

Time unit for initialDelay and delay options.

useFixedDelay

scheduler

true

boolean

Controls if fixed delay or fixed rate is used. See ScheduledExecutorService in JDK for details.

{% endraw %}

Examples

  • flatpack:fixed:foo.pzmap.xml creates a fixed-width endpoint using the foo.pzmap.xml file configuration.
  • flatpack:delim:bar.pzmap.xml creates a delimited endpoint using the bar.pzmap.xml file configuration.
  • flatpack:foo creates a delimited endpoint called foo with no file configuration.

Message Headers

Camel will store the following headers on the IN message:

HeaderDescription

camelFlatpackCounter

The current row index. For splitRows=false the counter is the total number of rows.

Message Body

The component delivers the data in the IN message as a org.apache.camel.component.flatpack.DataSetList object that has converters for java.util.Map or java.util.List. Usually you want the Map if you process one row at a time (splitRows=true). Use List for the entire content (splitRows=false), where each element in the list is a Map. Each Map contains the key for the column name and its corresponding value.

For example to get the firstname from the sample below:

  Map row = exchange.getIn().getBody(Map.class);
  String firstName = row.get("FIRSTNAME");

However, you can also always get it as a List (even for splitRows=true). The same example:

  List data = exchange.getIn().getBody(List.class);
  Map row = (Map)data.get(0);
  String firstName = row.get("FIRSTNAME");

Header and Trailer records

The header and trailer notions in Flatpack are supported. However, you must use fixed record IDs:

  • header for the header record (must be lowercase)
  • trailer for the trailer record (must be lowercase)

The example below illustrates this fact that we have a header and a trailer. You can omit one or both of them if not needed.

    <RECORD id="header" startPosition="1" endPosition="3" indicator="HBT">
        <COLUMN name="INDICATOR" length="3"/>
        <COLUMN name="DATE" length="8"/>
    </RECORD>

    <COLUMN name="FIRSTNAME" length="35" />
    <COLUMN name="LASTNAME" length="35" />
    <COLUMN name="ADDRESS" length="100" />
    <COLUMN name="CITY" length="100" />
    <COLUMN name="STATE" length="2" />
    <COLUMN name="ZIP" length="5" />

    <RECORD id="trailer" startPosition="1" endPosition="3" indicator="FBT">
        <COLUMN name="INDICATOR" length="3"/>
        <COLUMN name="STATUS" length="7"/>
    </RECORD>

Using the endpoint

A common use case is sending a file to this endpoint for further processing in a separate route. For example:

  <camelContext xmlns="http://activemq.apache.org/camel/schema/spring">
    <route>
      <from uri="file://someDirectory"/>
      <to uri="flatpack:foo"/>
    </route>

    <route>
      <from uri="flatpack:foo"/>
      ...
    </route>
  </camelContext>

You can also convert the payload of each message created to a Map for easy Bean Integration