The e-Mail adapter is designed to use data handlers to convert business objects to specified formats and convert data in specified formats to business objects. A data handler is not part of the adapter but is a separate module that can be customized or replaced as needed.
You can either use data handlers provided by IBM or write your own data handlers. If the data is in a proprietary format or the IBM-delivered data handlers do not support your application's data format, you must write a custom data handler. For example, IBM provides a data handler that converts between business objects and XML data. If your application generates HTML documents rather than XML documents, you would need to implement a custom data handler that would convert between HTML data and business objects.
Before you begin to work with e-Mail adapter, take time to analyze the data formats that your implementation will need to support. Then use the information in Table 7 to determine whether you can use the data handlers provided by IBM.
IBM-delivered data handlers | Description |
---|---|
XML data handler | Converts business objects to and from XML documents. Supports XML 1.0. |
NameValue data handler | Parses text data based on named fields, for example, fields that identify the business object type. |
FixedWidth data handler | Parses text data using fixed-length fields. The field lengths are specified by the MaxLength property of each business object attribute. |
Delimited data handler | Parses text data based on a specified delimiter that separates the individual fields of a business object's data. |
For information on data handlers, see the Data Handler Guide. If you determine that you must write a custom data handler, see the Data Handler Guide for information on how to do this.