What is EDI?
Tuesday, 16 February 2010

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An excellent reference for SAP EDI Mapping

I just came across an excellent reference for SAP EDI Mapping at http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/ehadzipetros/sap-edi-mapping-an-idoc-for-every-interface-33013 . The blogger lists some commonly accepted pairings between IDocs and EDI transaction sets and messages.

Thank you Emmanuel Hadzipetros for the correction about the original posting.

"dump" an EDI file into "Segment-Element: data" format

To "dump" an EDI file into "Segment-Element: data" format on a *nix box, use the following:

cat [filename] | tr '~' '\n' | awk -F* '{for (i=2;i<=NF;i++) {printf("%s-%03i: %s\n", $1, i-1, $i)}}'

where the tilde is the segment terminator and the asterisk is the element delimiter.

You will get:

ISA-001: xx
ISA-002: xxxxxxxxxxxx
ISA-003: xx
...

To UNwrap an EDI file into individual segments in UltraEdit

If you use UltraEdit to view EDI, and you open a wrapped EDI file, this macro will look to see what the segment terminator is, and use that character to unwrap the document automatically for you. It also puts that character back at the end of the line so it looks like clean unwrapped "perfect" EDI.......

Here is the code:

InsertMode
ColumnModeOff
HexOff
GotoLine 1 106
StartSelect
Key RIGHT ARROW
UnixReOn
Find MatchCase "^s"
Replace All "^s^p"

Thanks to Chris Cancilla via the EDI-L yahoo group for this tip.

Harold DeWayne

What recommended EDI delimiters should I use in my files?

Although _I've_ never used them, the BEST delimiter characters are the "unprintables" such as those below. Anything that _can_ be typed, will invariably show up somehow.

Hex Name and Description

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

00 NUL (Ctrl-@) NULL
01 SOH (Ctrl-A) START OF HEADING
02 STX (Ctrl-B) START OF TEXT
03 ETX (Ctrl-C) END OF TEXT
04 EOT (Ctrl-D) END OF TRANSMISSION
05 ENQ (Ctrl-E) ENQUIRY
06 ACK (Ctrl-F) ACKNOWLEDGE
07 BEL (Ctrl-G) BELL (Beep)
08 BS (Ctrl-H) BACKSPACE
09 HT (Ctrl-I) HORIZONTAL TAB
0A LF (Ctrl-J) LINE FEED
0B VT (Ctrl-K) VERTICAL TAB
0C FF (Ctrl-L) FORM FEED
0D CR (Ctrl-M) CARRIAGE RETURN
0E SO (Ctrl-N) SHIFT OUT
0F SI (Ctrl-O) SHIFT IN
10 DLE (Ctrl-P) DATA LINK ESCAPE
11 DC1 (Ctrl-Q) DEVICE CONTROL 1 (XON)
12 DC2 (Ctrl-R) DEVICE CONTROL 2
13 DC3 (Ctrl-S) DEVICE CONTROL 3 (XOFF)
14 DC4 (Ctrl-T) DEVICE CONTROL 4
15 NAK (Ctrl-U) NEGATIVE ACKNOWLEDGE
16 SYN (Ctrl-V) SYNCHRONOUS IDLE
17 ETB (Ctrl-W) END OF TRANSMISSION BLOCK
18 CAN (Ctrl-X) CANCEL
19 EM (Ctrl-Y) END OF MEDIUM
1A SUB (Ctrl-Z) SUBSTITUTE
1B ESC (Ctrl-[) ESCAPE
1C FS (Ctrl-\) FILE SEPARATOR
1D GS (Ctrl-]) GROUP SEPARATOR
1E RS (Ctrl-^) RECORD SEPARATOR
1F US (Ctrl-_) UNIT SEPARATOR
7F RUB (Ctrl-?) RUBOUT (DELETE)

How to NOT waste a day.

If I haven't learned something new or helped someone else learn something new, I have wasted the day... my goal is to not waste even one.

Harold DeWayne

Free EDI tool

I recently read about an "EDI for Free" tool available at http://www.di-international.com

The poster says "We are offering fully supported software (we will also help on the implementation) that is geniunely free for a year.

If at the end of the year, a user wishes to continue using the software they may do so and will pay for the traffic that they use in year 2. This is no different to the way many other EDI software providers work. Our traffic pricing is online should you wish to look.

There is no obligation at the end of the year to continue with it. "