Overview of map development

This section provides an overview of map development, which includes the following high-level tasks:

  1. Installing and setting up the map development software and installing the Java Development Kit.
  2. Designing and implementing the map.

Setting up the development environment

Requirements: Before you start the development process, the following must be true:

Designing and implementing the map

To design and implement maps you need to do the following:

  1. Learn the data formats used by all business objects involved in the map.
  2. Create the map within Map Designer Express.
  3. Customize any required transformation rule.
  4. Define any relationships within Relationship Designer Express that the map needs.
  5. Customize the mapping transformation to perform relationship management.
  6. Implement error and message handling, if appropriate.
  7. Generate the .java file and compiled code. The compiled code is an executable Java class. For more information, see "Map development files".
  8. Test and debug the map, recoding as necessary.

Figure 4 provides a visual overview of map development and provides a quick reference to chapters where you can find information on specific topics.

Tip: If a team of people is available for map development, the major tasks of developing a map can be done in parallel by different members of the development team.

Figure 5. Overview of the map development task

Map development files

The following information forms the basis of the map:

Attention:
Do not modify the mapname.java file. If you do, your changes are not reflected in the map design, which is stored in the project in System Manager. Therefore, these changes are not editable in Map Designer Express. Map Designer Express reads only the map definition.

Relationship Designer Express also stores relationship definitions in XML format in System Manager. At deployment, System Manager creates table schemas in the relationship database to contain the relationship run-time instance data. For each relationship, you can specify the location of all its relationship tables. The default location for these tables is the IBM WebSphere InterChange Server Express repository.

Table 4 lists the file types that Map Designer Express can generate (.java, .class, .cwm, .bo, .txt) and their locations relative to the System Manager workplace.

Table 4. Map file types

File type Description Location relative to System Manager workspace
.java Generated Java code, created by Map Designer Express when you compile a map. Stored in ProjectName\Maps\Src.
.class Compiled Java code, created by Map Designer Express when you compile a map. Stored in ProjectName\Maps\Classes.
.cwm Map definition file, generated by Map Designer Express when you save a map definition. Saved to ProjectName\Maps when "Saved" to System Manager.
.bo Plain text file, used to save and load test run data and to save test run results. You can save these files to any location.
.txt Message file, created by Map Designer Express from information in the Messages tab when it compiles the map.
Stored in ProjectName\Maps\Messages.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003