How to split an EDIFACT file?

Question

I'm using the Oracle SOA Suite B2B component to process an EDIFACT file. I need to process a +2Gb file and it can't be process all at once. I need to split the file into smaller ones and then process them all. Is there any Java application that help me with this splitting problem?? ..

Or if I try to develop it, How should be the format of the smaller EDIFACT files in order to be able to preocess them?..

Thanks,

Answer 1

EDIFACT interchange files are composed of segments. Each segment ends with a segment delimiter. Therefore, it would be quite easy to write a small program to split your file into two or more smaller parts. Note that the segment delimiter can be chosen in the first segment (UNA).

However, this splitting will affect the overall structure of your EDIFACT file. It takes deaper knowledge of the interchange/message structure to find a viable split location.

The overall structure of an EDIFACT interchange looks as follows:

        Service String Advice     UNA  Optional
 +----- Interchange Header        UNB  Mandatory
 | +---   Functional Group Header   UNG  Conditional
 | | +-     Message Header            UNH  Mandatory
 | | |        User Data Segments             As required
 | | +-     Message Trailer           UNT  Mandatory
 | +---   Functional Group Trailer  UNE  Conditional
 +----- Interchange Trailer       UNZ  Mandatory

If your big file contains many messages (starting with UNH and ending with UNT segments), you could split along the message boundaries and add artifical UNB/UNZ envelopes.