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Introduction

The To File component is a destination component that writes incoming data to a file or multiple files as needed. It serves to expand on the File Writer component with additional configurations and settings.

This adapter can be easily modified to add additional functionality or to fulfil extra requirements.

Running the Component

Info

The below steps assume the correct user permissions are in place to read/write files.

Expand
titleSTEP 1: Import the To File component

Using the image-20240730-154700.pngImage Removed button+COMPONENT, import the To File component.

Expand
titleSTEP 2: Setup the component configurations in the component card
Screen Shot 2024-08-02 at 2.56.33 PM.png

Fields marked with an asterisk* are required, otherwise default values defined in config.json are used:

Field

Description

Default Value

DestinationDirectory *

The directory where the output file(s) will be stored. The adapter will attempt to create it if it does not exist.

-

OutputFileMask

The name and extension of the output files. See Additional details.

%Y (year), %m (month), %d (day), %H (hour), %M (minute), %S (second) and %f (millisecond)

output_%Y_%m_%d_%H_%M_%S.txt

OneFilePerMessage

Specifies whether each inbound message will have its own file.

false

OutputEncoding

The encoding used in the output file.

If left blank, encoding will be updated to the default according to OS. See supported encodings in Additional Details Supported File Encodings.

Western (Windows-1252) for Windows

Western (ISO-8859-1) for Linux/Mac OS X.

Escape8BitCharacters

Specifies whether to escape non-ASCII characters in outbound messages.

Ex. "é" would be sent as "\XE9\" (in Latin-1 or Windows-1252) or "\XC3\\XA9\" (in UTF-8).

false

UseTempFiles

Specifies whether to use temporary files while writing.

When true, it will append “.tmp” to files currently being written until the component is done writing to them. It will only remove the .tmp extension when a new file is written in.

true

Expand
titleSTEP 3: Start the component and verify the files from your destination directory

Start the component.

Once inbound messages are processed, check the defined destination directory to see your newly created file(s).

Example Configurations

Expand
titleExample 1 - If you want one file for all messages

If you want one file for all messages:

  • Set OneFilePerMessage to false

  • This will result in a single “output.txt“ file containing all messages.

Screen Shot 2024-08-12 at 2.28.27 PM.png

The OutputFileMask will behave differently depending if OneFilePerMessage is set to true:

  • OneFilePerMessage set to false will result in a single file “output.txt“ that all the incoming data will be written to.

  • OneFilePerMessage set to true will result in individual files generated as output.txt, output(1).txt, output(2).txt and so on. Similarly, with a timestamp mask “output_%Y_%m_%d_%H_%M_%S.txt”, if two messages come in at the same time then the name of the files will be: “output_2024_12_30_16_45_55.txt” and “output_2024_12_30_16_45_55(1).txt”

...

Expand
titleExample 3 - If you want one file for all the messages that came in the same second/minute/hour/day/month/year

If you want one file for all the messages that came in the same second/minute/hour/day/month/year:

  • Set OneFilePerMessage to false

  • Messages will be written to files according to the OutputFileMask timestamp specified.

Screen Shot 2024-08-12 at 2.31.10 PM.png

The OutputFileMask is both the format of the outbound file names as well as can be used to determine when a new file is created.

You can modify a mask as required, but the smallest unit will determine how often a new file is created/a roll-over happens. This allows you to organize data by the second/minute/hour/day/month/year (or millisecond) it arrived in.

  • If 2 bits of data arrived at 2024/12/30 at 16:45:55, they will be written to the same file with the name “output_2024_12_30_16_45_55.txt” (unless the OneFilePerMessage field is set to true).

  • If another bit came a second later, it will create a new file “output_2024_12_30_16_45_56.txt” and so on.

Additional Details

Expand
titleOutputFileMask

The OutputFileMask is the format for the name that the resulting files will take. It can also be used to determine when a new file is created.

You can modify a mask as required, but the smallest unit will determine how often a new file is created/a roll-over happens. This allows you to organize data by the second/minute/hour/day/month/year (or millisecond) it arrived in.

“output_%Y_%m_%d_%H_%M_%S.txt” will have masks replaced with timestamps as follows:

  • %Y: Year

  • %m: Month

  • %d: Day

  • %H: Hour

  • %M: Minute

  • %S: Second

  • %f: Millisecond

UTF-8

Expand
titleSupported encodings (OutputEncoding configuration)

Encoding Name

Code

Chinese (Big 5 HKSCS)

BIG5-HKSCS

Chinese (GB 18030)

GB18030

Chinese (GB 2312)

GB2312

Chinese (GBK)

GBK

Japanese (ISO-2022-JP)

ISO-2022-JP

Korean (ISO-2022-KR)

ISO-2022-KR

Western (ISO-8859-1)

ISO-8859-1

Central European (ISO-8859-2)

ISO-8859-2

South European (ISO-8859-3)

ISO-8859-3

Central European (ISO-8859-4)

ISO-8859-4

Cyrillic (ISO-8859-5)

ISO-8859-5

Arabic (ISO-8859-6)

ISO-8859-6

Greek (ISO-8859-7)

ISO-8859-7

Hebrew (ISO-8859-8)

ISO-8859-8

Turkish (ISO-8859-9)

ISO-8859-9

Western (Windows-1252)

Windows-1252

Chinese (Big 5)

big5

Japanese (EUC-JP)

eucJP

Japanese (Shift JIS)

sjis

8-Bit Unicode