This topic covers the Plain Text Client tool, which supports converting between Plain Text and XML formats. It also addresses the Plain Text Call Back tool, which simplifies the handling of incoming Plain Text messages.
Sections include:
About these Tools
Plain Text Client is an instance of the EDI Client tool that is preconfigured to operate on plain text messages. You can create a Plain Text Client tool directly from the Add Tool wizards. Or, you can add an EDI Client tool and change its format to Plain Text. The tool’s name will then change to Plain Text Client (unless you disabled the Use Default Name option).
Likewise, the Plain Text Call Back tool is an instance of the Enhanced Call Back tool that is preconfigured to operate on Plain Text messages. To create a Plain Text Call Back tool, add an Enhanced Call Back tool and change its format to Plain Text. The tool’s name will then change to Plain Text Call Back (unless you disabled the Use Default Name option).
Note that the Plain Text tools have Plain Text-specific conversion options; these are described in Conversion Options below.
Working with Plain Text in SOAtest
SOAtest converts between plain text and XML format to facilitate the rapid configuration, sending, and validation of plain text messages.
The Plain Text format is not a standard; rather, it is something that SOAtest offers to allow ad hoc conversion to XML (so that you can provide any value to an XML tool).
For instance, to convert from text to XML, the Plain Text format wraps the text in a "root" element. To convert from XML to text, the Plain Text format removes the "root" node. For example:
- Text: alpha
- Converted to XML: <root>alpha</root>
- Converted back to text: alpha
The Plain Text format handles any characters such as "<" that cannot be used in XML text. For example, assume you have the following:
- Text: alpha < beta
- Converted to XML: <root>alpha < beta</root>
When this is converted back to text, you get: alpha < beta
Conversion Options
The following conversion option is available in Plain Text Client and Plain Text Call Back tools:
- Normalize space: Removes leading and trailing spaces from the text and replaces all internal sequences of white space with a single space.
