🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <phrE5zB8v.DJy@netcom.com>, Paul Rubin <phr@netcom.com> wrote:

>I continue to believe relational databases aren't a natural way to
>represent what goes into EDI documents.

Relational databases are a very general- any data structure can be mapped to
them (structures, lists, trees, even self-referential trees like grammars). 
Most modern databases are relational: what more natural choice could there
be for transfering data between databases?

Well here's a revised example Free-EDI purchase order.  I changed the
overall format so that long lines are broken by whitespace (if a line begins
with whitespace, it is a continuation of the previous line and the
whitespace is reduced to a single space, also whitespace around fields is
ignored).  Thus a transaction can be formatted so as to be humanly readable. 
Also I've added column and table descriptions and Mandatory/Optional
qualifiers for tables and columns.  The idea is that you could have a
program which prompts a user for data given a copy of the standard or even
an instance of any transaction.  Alternatively, there could be a program
which verifies syntax and ensures that mandatory data is really given. 
Additional information could be given along with the column and table
definitions: column width, whether a column or set of columns must be
unique, range qualifiers for numeric types, whether a column is a code which
indexes another table and so on.  It would be conceivable that database
consistency expressions could be specified as in some RDMSs, but I think
that would probably be a little over done.  I was also thinking that it
would be neat if a transaction could survive being sorted by cleverly
ordering the line type characters.  It would be possible, but is probably
not all that necessary.

I think this would be a vast improvement over the current EDI format.  It's
self-documenting, humanly readable and requires only a single simple parser
which doesn't depend on the type of data being transmitted.

Still... if there is no real interest I'll drop the issue.  There is already
a push for EDI over e-mail and UN/EDIFACT is publicly available- which were
my biggest complaints in the first place.  Free-EDI won't help me in my job,
but I can always wish for a gnu world...


; Begin Free-EDI transactions.  The following line tells where the mail
; header ends and our data begins.  The first character of the line
; identifies the line type.  Blank lines and lines beginning with ; are
; ignored.
beginning of Free-EDI data

; Free-EDI version number
v			free-edi.1

; Begin transaction with unique transaction I.D.
x jhallen@world.std.com.1557736

; Tables which make up the transaction

; Header table
t header(m)	Standard free-edi.1 transaction header table

; Column descriptions for header table
c date(date,m)		Date transaction has been submitted.
c from(text,m)		Sender's e-mail address.
c to(text,m)		Recipient's e-mail address.
c form(text,m)		Form identifier.

; Column ordering for header table '|' is field separator.
|date             |from                   |to
   |form

; Records which make up the table
|1997-02-18.04:30 |jhallen@world.std.com  |free-edi@motorola.com
   |Simple-Order-USA.1

; Orders table
t orders(m)	A table of the orders being submitted by this transaction.

; Column descriptions
c refno(text,m)		Identifies the order.

c billto(text,m)	Identifies who is paying for the order.  See the
                        addresses list which follows.

c shipto(text,m)	A code for the address where the order is to be
			shipped.  See the addresses list which follows.

c placedby(text,o)	Optional name of the person who is placing the order.

c paymethod(text,m)	A code for the payment method to be used for this
                        order.

c shipvia(text,m)	A code for the shipping method to be employed in
			delivering this order.

c shipdate(date,o)	Requested arrival date for this order.

; Column ordering
>refno |billto |shipto|placedby|paymeth|shipvia  |shipdate

; Records
|1000  |joe    |joe   |joe     |net30  |fedex-2  |1997-02-19
|1023  |joe    |joe   |joe     |ccard  |ups-blue |1997-02-19

t addresses(o)	A list of addresses used throughout this order.

c addrcode(text,m)	Code which identifies this address.
c name(text,m)		Company name.
c street(text,m)	Street.
c city(text,o)		City.
c state(text,o)		State.
c zipcode(text,m)	Zip.
c contact(text,o)	Contact.
c phone(text,o)		Phone number.

; Column ordering
>addrid |name
        |street
        |city                        |state |zipcode
        |contact                     |phone

; Records.  Notice that they can be fairly free-form.
|joe    |Joseph Allen
        |53 Windor St.
        |Hackensack                  |NJ    |11359
        |joe                         |567-133-1234

|pete   |Pete Cronin
        |125 Edwards ave.
        |Plainfield                  |MA    |01010
        |pete                        |508-221-1122

t itemlines(m)	A list of the items being ordered.

c refno(text,m)		Code which identifies the order
c itemcode(text,m)	Code which identifies item
c description(text,o)	Description of item.
c qty(int,m)		Quantity ordered.

>refno |itemcode|description                          |qty
|1000  |106041  |1 micron steal bearings              |8000
|1002  |104008  |3" steel bearings                    |50

t shipvia(o)  	A list of possible shipping methods

c shipvia(text,m)	Shipping code.
c description(text,o)	Description of the shipping method.

>shipvia |description
|ups-red |Overnight with UPS
|ups-blue|2nd day UPS
|fedex-1 |Fedex priority
|fedex-2 |Fedex 2nd day

t paymeth(o)	A list of possible payment methods

c paymeth(text,m)	Code for the payment method.
c description(text,o)	Description of payment method
c pono(text,o)		Purchase order no.
c ccard(text,o)		Credit card no.

>paymeth |description                       |pono    |ccard
|net30   |Bill purchaser                    |        |
|po      |Use given PO number               |123456  |
|ccard   |Use this credit card              |        |1234123412341234 12/99

; End transaction with transaction I.D.
e jhallen@world.std.com.1557736

; End of all transactions
z
-- 
/*  jhallen@world.std.com (192.74.137.5) */               /* Joseph H. Allen */
int a[1817];main(z,p,q,r){for(p=80;q+p-80;p-=2*a[p])for(z=9;z--;)q=3&(r=time(0)
+r*57)/7,q=q?q-1?q-2?1-p%79?-1:0:p%79-77?1:0:p<1659?79:0:p>158?-79:0,q?!a[p+q*2
]?a[p+=a[p+=q]=q]=q:0:0;for(;q++-1817;)printf(q%79?"%c":"%c\n"," #"[!a[q-1]]);}