Java XML to EDI design

Question

I have a requirement to convert XML to EDI. I have searched a lot for open source free libraries which full fill my need, but could not find any.

So I decided to write my own logic.

Below are my requirements for an application I am going to execute.

Input of the application is: XML data

Output of the application is: EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) representation of the XML data.

I have to apply some business rules on XML data and generate the EDI representation.

Here is my design for the requirement:

• The Java POJOs, here onwards these are Source POJOs, to represent the xml data. To load xml data into Source POJOs, I am using JAXB.
• The Java POJOs, here onwards these are Target POJOs, to represent the EDI model.
• A Java class, here onwards it is XmlToEDIBuilder, to code the business rules
• Finally I am using FreeMarker Template to get the desired EDI structure out of Target POJOs.

Is my design looks good? Any suggestions would really help me.

Answer 1

Recently I had a project involving edifact parsing and generation. I used http://www.smooks.org/ framework for that purpose.

Using the framework mentioned above your application logic steps might be the following:

• parse XML to POJO
• use precompiled smooks components and your POJO to build your desired edifact version

Smooks components could be extended in case some custom and/or client specific edifact format needed.

Here is the usage example to get you started: https://github.com/lunatech-labs/smooks-examples/blob/master/edifact-in-code-manipulation/src/main/java/example/Main.java