Excelreader-call

Definition

Many IT applications, within their business process, need to read an Excel file. ExcelReaderCall plug-in helps IT organizations integrating applications that use Excel format to execute their business.

ExcelReaderCall plug-in is compatible with all Excel formats up to version 2003, and it is very simple to configure. It receives in input a binary stream containing the Excel file, and returns in output a corresponding XML structure.

To the output of ExcelReaderCall plug-in it is possible to apply a ChangeGVBufferNode operation (with OGNL script or an XSL transformation) to retrieve all interested data.

GreenVulcano^® ESB provides two different tools, GV Console^® and VulCon^®, to configure all supported plug-ins.

VulCon / GV Console Configuration

excelreader-call is the operation that must be configured into VulCon^® or GV Console^® System section, to convert an Excel file in GVBuffer.object field, in an XML document.

In order to add an operation excelreader-call you must define the following fields:

Attribute	Type	Description
class	fixed	it.greenvulcano.gvesb.virtual.excel.reader.GVExcelReaderCallOperation (java class that manage ExcelReaderCall invocation).
name	required	This field identify the operation name that you will use in service definition.
onlyData	optional	It is a boolean field, enabled in output cell formatting informations. If 'false', inserts in the XML document also the cell formatting informations. Default to 'true'.
type	fixed	This attribute must assume the value call

The following example shows the configuration generated from VulCon^® or GV Console^® when you configure an excelreader-call operation:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<GVSystems name="SYSTEMS" type="module">
    <Systems>
        <System id-system="system-name" system-activation="on">
            <Channel id-channel="CHANNEL_NAME">
                <excelreader-call class="it.greenvulcano.gvesb.virtual.excel.reader.GVExcelReaderCallOperation"
                                  name="ReadExcelInput" type="call" onlyData="true"/>
            </Channel>    
        </System>
    </Systems>
</GVSystems>

To use an excelreader-call in a GreenVulcano^® ESB service, you need to define a node of type GVOperationNode in Service section and define in the field operation-name the name defined in excelreader-call operation.

The following example shows the configuration generated from VulCon^® or GV Console^® when you configure an excelreader-call operation in GreenVulcano^® ESB service:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<GVServices name="SERVICES" type="module">
    <Groups>
        <Group group-activation="on" id-group="DEFAULT_GRP"/>
    </Groups>
    <Services>
        <Service group-name="DEFAULT_GRP" id-service="SERVICE-NAME"
                 service-activation="on">
            <Client id-system="SYSTEM-NAME" statistics="off" system-activation="on">
                <Operation name="RequestReply" operation-activation="on"
                           out-check-type="none" type="operation">
                    <Participant id-channel="CHANNEL-NAME" id-system="SYSTEM-NAME"/>
                    <Flow first-node="excel_reader" point-x="20" point-y="112">
                        <GVOperationNode class="it.greenvulcano.gvesb.core.flow.GVOperationNode"
                                         id="excel_reader" id-system="DAMA"
                                         input="input" next-node-id="end"
                                         op-type="call"
                                         operation-name="ReadExcelInput"
                                         output="excel_xml" point-x="158"
                                         point-y="112" type="flow-node"/>
                        <GVEndNode class="it.greenvulcano.gvesb.core.flow.GVEndNode"
                                   end-business-process="yes" id="end" op-type="end"
                                   output="excel_xml" point-x="358" point-y="112"
                                   type="flow-node"/>
                    </Flow>
                </Operation>
            </Client>    
        </Service>
    </Services>
</GVServices>

At this point you have configured a service with an excelreader-call operation.

Example

This example shows an XML document generated by a simple Excel sheet (without cols and rows grouping). Given an Excel sheet with the following structure:

ID1	ID2	ID3	ID4	ID5	ID6	ID7
23	23232	23	23333	1	2	3
24	24444	23	23332	1	2	3

excelreader-call generates the following XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<workbook>
    <sheet number="0">
        <name><![CDATA[Foglio1]]></name>
        <row number="0">
            <col number="0">
                <data><![CDATA[ID1]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="1">
                <data><![CDATA[ID2]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="2">
                <data><![CDATA[ID3]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="3">
                <data><![CDATA[ID4]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="4">
                <data><![CDATA[ID5]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="5">
                <data><![CDATA[ID6]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="6">
                <data><![CDATA[ID7]]></data>
            </col>
        </row>
        <row number="1">
            <col number="0">
                <data><![CDATA[23]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="1">
                <data><![CDATA[23232]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="2">
                <data><![CDATA[23]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="3">
                <data><![CDATA[711]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="4">
                <data><![CDATA[1]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="5">
                <data><![CDATA[1]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="6">
                <data><![CDATA[1]]></data>
            </col>
        </row>
        <row number="2">
            <col number="0">
                <data><![CDATA[23]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="1">
                <data><![CDATA[711]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="2">
                <data><![CDATA[23]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="3">
                <data><![CDATA[23232]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="4">
                <data><![CDATA[1]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="5">
                <data><![CDATA[1]]></data>
            </col>
            <col number="6">
                <data><![CDATA[1]]></data>
            </col>
        </row>
    </sheet>
</workbook>

With a ChangeGVBufferNode is possible parsing XML and retrieve any tag and value.