Custom Parser Extensions

If you need to perform data scrubbing or other custom post-processing of a parsed field in a message definition, you can create a custom extension for the field parser. To do so, you must provide a Java class that implements the com.sybase.jtf.parser.api.IParseExtension interface. This interface is contained in the pgen.jar file, which is provided with the WorkSpace Message Designer. As shown in the following fragment, your code must implement the method extend() that is contained in this interface. The message parser calls your implementation of this method so that you can fine-tune or replace the results.

// package declaration
package com.sybase.jtf.parser.api;

/**
 * The IParseExtension interface provides an extension point in which 
 * clients can develop custom code to extend the field parsing 
 * capability of any IParser. Once a field has been parsed by an IParser, 
 * the extend() method of a class that implements the IParseExtension 
 * interface can be called on that field to allow for additional 
 * functionality such as custom modification, substitution, additional 
 * validation and data scrubbing.
 */
public interface IParseExtension {

        /**
         * Called on a parsed field to allow clients to extend the field 
         * parsing capability of an IParser. 
         * 
         * @param field The parsed field (represented as a byte array).
         * 
         * @return The modified field (represented as a byte array).
         */
        public byte[] extend(byte[] field);
}