Flatpack

Since Camel 1.4

Both producer and consumer are supported

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.

URI format

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

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

flatpack:someName[?options]

Configuring Options

Camel components are configured on two separate levels:

  • component level

  • endpoint level

Configuring Component Options

At the component level, you set general and shared configurations that are, then, inherited by the endpoints. It is the highest configuration level.

For example, a component may have security settings, credentials for authentication, urls for network connection and so forth.

Some components only have a few options, and others may have many. Because components typically have pre-configured defaults that are commonly used, then you may often only need to configure a few options on a component; or none at all.

You can configure components using:

  • the Component DSL.

  • in a configuration file (application.properties, *.yaml files, etc).

  • directly in the Java code.

Configuring Endpoint Options

You usually spend more time setting up endpoints because they have many options. These options help you customize what you want the endpoint to do. The options are also categorized into whether the endpoint is used as a consumer (from), as a producer (to), or both.

Configuring endpoints is most often done directly in the endpoint URI as path and query parameters. You can also use the Endpoint DSL and DataFormat DSL as a type safe way of configuring endpoints and data formats in Java.

A good practice when configuring options is to use Property Placeholders.

Property placeholders provide a few benefits:

  • They help prevent using hardcoded urls, port numbers, sensitive information, and other settings.

  • They allow externalizing the configuration from the code.

  • They help the code to become more flexible and reusable.

The following two sections list all the options, firstly for the component followed by the endpoint.

Component Options

The Flatpack component supports 3 options, which are listed below.

Name Description Default Type

bridgeErrorHandler (consumer)

Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler, which mean any exceptions (if possible) occurred while the Camel consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages, or the likes, will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. Important: This is only possible if the 3rd party component allows Camel to be alerted if an exception was thrown. Some components handle this internally only, and therefore bridgeErrorHandler is not possible. In other situations we may improve the Camel component to hook into the 3rd party component and make this possible for future releases. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions, that will be logged at WARN or ERROR level and ignored.

false

boolean

lazyStartProducer (producer)

Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing.

false

boolean

autowiredEnabled (advanced)

Whether autowiring is enabled. This is used for automatic autowiring options (the option must be marked as autowired) by looking up in the registry to find if there is a single instance of matching type, which then gets configured on the component. This can be used for automatic configuring JDBC data sources, JMS connection factories, AWS Clients, etc.

true

boolean

Endpoint Options

The Flatpack endpoint is configured using URI syntax:

flatpack:type:resourceUri

With the following path and query parameters:

Path Parameters (2 parameters)

Name Description Default Type

type (common)

Whether to use fixed or delimiter.

Enum values:

  • fixed

  • delim

delim

FlatpackType

resourceUri (common)

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

String

Query Parameters (26 parameters)

Name Description Default Type

allowShortLines (common)

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

false

boolean

delimiter (common)

The default character delimiter for delimited files.

,

char

ignoreExtraColumns (common)

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

false

boolean

ignoreFirstRecord (common)

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

true

boolean

splitRows (common)

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

true

boolean

textQualifier (common)

The text qualifier for delimited files.

char

sendEmptyMessageWhenIdle (consumer)

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

false

boolean

bridgeErrorHandler (consumer (advanced))

Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler, which mean any exceptions (if possible) occurred while the Camel consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages, or the likes, will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. Important: This is only possible if the 3rd party component allows Camel to be alerted if an exception was thrown. Some components handle this internally only, and therefore bridgeErrorHandler is not possible. In other situations we may improve the Camel component to hook into the 3rd party component and make this possible for future releases. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions, that will be logged at WARN or ERROR level and ignored.

false

boolean

exceptionHandler (consumer (advanced))

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

ExceptionHandler

exchangePattern (consumer (advanced))

Sets the exchange pattern when the consumer creates an exchange.

Enum values:

  • InOnly

  • InOut

ExchangePattern

pollStrategy (consumer (advanced))

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.

PollingConsumerPollStrategy

lazyStartProducer (producer (advanced))

Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing.

false

boolean

backoffErrorThreshold (scheduler)

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

int

backoffIdleThreshold (scheduler)

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

int

backoffMultiplier (scheduler)

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.

int

delay (scheduler)

Milliseconds before the next poll.

500

long

greedy (scheduler)

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

false

boolean

initialDelay (scheduler)

Milliseconds before the first poll starts.

1000

long

repeatCount (scheduler)

Specifies a maximum limit of number of fires. So if you set it to 1, the scheduler will only fire once. If you set it to 5, it will only fire five times. A value of zero or negative means fire forever.

0

long

runLoggingLevel (scheduler)

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

Enum values:

  • TRACE

  • DEBUG

  • INFO

  • WARN

  • ERROR

  • OFF

TRACE

LoggingLevel

scheduledExecutorService (scheduler)

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

ScheduledExecutorService

scheduler (scheduler)

To use a cron scheduler from either camel-spring or camel-quartz component. Use value spring or quartz for built in scheduler.

none

Object

schedulerProperties (scheduler)

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

Map

startScheduler (scheduler)

Whether the scheduler should be auto started.

true

boolean

timeUnit (scheduler)

Time unit for initialDelay and delay options.

Enum values:

  • NANOSECONDS

  • MICROSECONDS

  • MILLISECONDS

  • SECONDS

  • MINUTES

  • HOURS

  • DAYS

MILLISECONDS

TimeUnit

useFixedDelay (scheduler)

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

true

boolean

Message Headers

The Flatpack component supports 1 message header(s), which is/are listed below:

Name Description Default Type

CamelFlatpackCounter (producer)

Constant: FLATPACK_COUNTER

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

int

Usage

  • 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 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 as an 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

Flatpack DataFormat

The Flatpack component ships with the Flatpack data format that can be used to format between fixed width or delimited text messages to a List of rows as Map.

  • marshal = from List<Map<String, Object>> to OutputStream (can be converted to String)

  • unmarshal = from java.io.InputStream (such as a File or String) to a java.util.List as an org.apache.camel.component.flatpack.DataSetList instance.
    The result of the operation will contain all the data. If you need to process each row one by one you can split the exchange, using Splitter.

Notice: The Flatpack library does currently not support header and trailers for the marshal operation.

Options

The data format has the following options:

Option Default Description

definition

null

The flatpack pzmap configuration file. Can be omitted in simpler situations, but its preferred to use the pzmap.

fixed

false

Delimited or fixed.

ignoreFirstRecord

true

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

textQualifier

"

If the text is qualified with a char such as ".

delimiter

,

The delimiter char (could be ; , or similar)

parserFactory

null

Uses the default Flatpack parser factory.

allowShortLines

false

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

ignoreExtraColumns

false

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

Using the data format

To use the data format, instantiate an instance and invoke the marshal or unmarshal operation in the route builder:

  FlatpackDataFormat fp = new FlatpackDataFormat();
  fp.setDefinition(new ClassPathResource("INVENTORY-Delimited.pzmap.xml"));
  ...
  from("file:order/in").unmarshal(df).to("seda:queue:neworder");

The sample above will read files from the order/in folder and unmarshal the input using the Flatpack configuration file INVENTORY-Delimited.pzmap.xml that configures the structure of the files. The result is a DataSetList object we store on the SEDA queue.

FlatpackDataFormat df = new FlatpackDataFormat();
df.setDefinition(new ClassPathResource("PEOPLE-FixedLength.pzmap.xml"));
df.setFixed(true);
df.setIgnoreFirstRecord(false);

from("seda:people").marshal(df).convertBodyTo(String.class).to("jms:queue:people");

In the code above we marshal the data from an Object representation as a List of rows as Maps. The rows as Map contains the column name as the key, and the corresponding value. This structure can be created in Java code from e.g., a processor. We marshal the data according to the Flatpack format and convert the result as a String object and store it on a JMS queue.

Dependencies

To use Flatpack in your camel routes, you need to add a dependency on camel-flatpack which implements this data format.

If you use maven, you could add the following to your pom.xml, substituting the version number for the latest release.

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
  <artifactId>camel-flatpack</artifactId>
  <version>x.x.x</version>
</dependency>

Spring Boot Auto-Configuration

When using flatpack with Spring Boot make sure to use the following Maven dependency to have support for auto configuration:

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

The component supports 13 options, which are listed below.

Name Description Default Type

camel.component.flatpack.autowired-enabled

Whether autowiring is enabled. This is used for automatic autowiring options (the option must be marked as autowired) by looking up in the registry to find if there is a single instance of matching type, which then gets configured on the component. This can be used for automatic configuring JDBC data sources, JMS connection factories, AWS Clients, etc.

true

Boolean

camel.component.flatpack.bridge-error-handler

Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler, which mean any exceptions (if possible) occurred while the Camel consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages, or the likes, will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. Important: This is only possible if the 3rd party component allows Camel to be alerted if an exception was thrown. Some components handle this internally only, and therefore bridgeErrorHandler is not possible. In other situations we may improve the Camel component to hook into the 3rd party component and make this possible for future releases. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions, that will be logged at WARN or ERROR level and ignored.

false

Boolean

camel.component.flatpack.enabled

Whether to enable auto configuration of the flatpack component. This is enabled by default.

Boolean

camel.component.flatpack.lazy-start-producer

Whether the producer should be started lazy (on the first message). By starting lazy you can use this to allow CamelContext and routes to startup in situations where a producer may otherwise fail during starting and cause the route to fail being started. By deferring this startup to be lazy then the startup failure can be handled during routing messages via Camel’s routing error handlers. Beware that when the first message is processed then creating and starting the producer may take a little time and prolong the total processing time of the processing.

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.allow-short-lines

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

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.definition

The flatpack pzmap configuration file. Can be omitted in simpler situations, but its preferred to use the pzmap.

String

camel.dataformat.flatpack.delimiter

The delimiter char (could be ; , or similar).

,

String

camel.dataformat.flatpack.enabled

Whether to enable auto configuration of the flatpack data format. This is enabled by default.

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.fixed

Delimited or fixed. Is by default false = delimited.

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.ignore-extra-columns

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

false

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.ignore-first-record

Whether the first line is ignored for delimited files (for the column headers). Is by default true.

true

Boolean

camel.dataformat.flatpack.parser-factory-ref

References to a custom parser factory to lookup in the registry.

String

camel.dataformat.flatpack.text-qualifier

If the text is qualified with a character. Uses quote character by default.

String
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