Tech Blog

Understanding the BizTalk Mapper: Part 7 – Conversion Functoids

Surprisingly, neither XSLT v1.0 nor XSLT v2.0 have any built-in conversion support (well, not for the scenarios represented in this category anyway).
It is possible to download XSLT libraries which can do this sort of conversion (as
mentioned in the notes below each functoid), but the XSLT is not pretty, and I’m not
convinced about performance.
So C# is generally your only option here.

For each functoid I’ve shown:

  1. Whether XSLT or C# is emitted
  2. Whether an XSLT equivalent exists
  3. The XSLT or C# emitted by the functoid
  4. Where C# is emitted, the equivalent XSLT to achieve the same functionality (in both
    XSLT v1.0 and v2.0)

Functoids covered in this category:

ASCII to Character Octal
Character to ASCII Common Code
Hexadecimal  

Note:

This is the seventh in a series of 13 posts about the BizTalk Mapper.
The other posts in this series are (links will become active as the posts become active):
Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 1 – Introduction


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 2 – Functoids Overview


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 3 – String Functoids


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 4 – Mathematical Functoids


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 5 – Logical Functoids


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 6 – Date/Time Functoids


Understanding the BizTalk Mapper: Part 7 – Conversion Functoids

Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 8 – Scientific Functoids


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 9 – Cumulative Functoids


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 10 – Database Functoids


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 11 – Advanced Functoids


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 12 – Performance and Maintainability


Understanding
the BizTalk Mapper: Part 13 – Is the Mapper the best choice for Transformation in
BizTalk?

Download the complete series as a single Microsoft
Word document (1.2MB)
or Adobe
PDF document (620kb)
.

Conversion Functoids

 

ASCII to Character

 

 

Generates: C#

Has XSLT Equivalent: No

  Emitted Code:

public string ConvertChr(string val)

{

    string retval
= “”;


    double d
= 0;


    if (IsNumeric(val, ref d))

    {

        int v
= (int)d;


        if (v
>= 1 && v <= 127)


       
{


            char c
= (char)v;


           
retval = c.ToString(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);


       
}


    }

    return retval;

}
 

XSLT 1.0 Equivalent: (none)

  XSLT 2.0 Equivalent: (none)

Note: There are some inelegant hacks you can use (e.g. listing
all the ASCII chars in a variable and selecting by index, or using the translate()
function with a list of possible values) but there is no built-in support for this
conversion.
 

 

Character to ASCII

 

 

Generates: C#

Has XSLT Equivalent: No

  Emitted Code:

public string ConvertAsc(string val)

{

    if (val
== null || val == “”)


    {

        return “”;

    }

    else

    {

        char c
= val[0];


        int x
= c;


        return x.ToString(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

    }

}
 

XSLT 1.0 Equivalent: (none)

  XSLT 2.0 Equivalent: (none)

Note: There are some inelegant hacks you can use (e.g. listing
all the ASCII chars in a variable and selecting by index, or using the translate()
function with a list of possible values) but there is no built-in support for this
conversion.
 

 

Hexadecimal

 

 

Generates: C#

Has XSLT Equivalent: No

  Emitted Code:

public string ConvertHex(string val)

{

    string retval
= “”;


    double d
= 0;


    if (IsNumeric(val, ref d))

    {

        int v
= (int)d;


       
retval = Convert.ToString(v, 16).ToUpper(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);


    }

    return retval;

}
 

XSLT 1.0 Equivalent: (none)

 

XSLT 2.0 Equivalent: (none)

Note: There are some inelegant templates you can use to
perform this conversion, but they are all quite long and involve string manipulation.

 

 

Octal

 

 

Generates: C#

Has XSLT Equivalent: No

  Emitted Code:

public string ConvertOct(string val)

{

    string retval
= “”;


    double d
= 0;


    if (IsNumeric(val, ref d))

    {

        int v
= (int)d;


       
retval = Convert.ToString(v, 8);


    }

    return retval;

}
 

XSLT 1.0 Equivalent: (none)

  XSLT 2.0 Equivalent: (none)

Note: There are some inelegant templates you can use to
perform this conversion, but they are all quite long and involve string manipulation.
   
  Common Code

(this is common code used by all the conversion functoids)
  public bool IsNumeric(string val)

{

    if (val
== null)


    {

        return false;

    }

    double d
= 0;


    return Double.TryParse(val,
System.Globalization.NumberStyles.AllowThousands
| System.Globalization.NumberStyles.Float, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, out d);


}

 

public bool IsNumeric(string val, ref double d)

{

    if (val
== null)


    {

        return false;

    }

    return Double.TryParse(val,
System.Globalization.NumberStyles.AllowThousands
| System.Globalization.NumberStyles.Float, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, out d);


}

Back to Tech Blog