Formatter configuration

Formatters are what the toolkit uses to exchange data between toolkit entities such as operations, contexts, and services. Each formatter converts a specific data item into a string representation of the data item and parses a string into a specific data item. In this way, the toolkit uses formatters to build messages to do things such as sending a transaction to the host, writing a journal record, and printing a form. Formatters enable applications to interact with many various entities without requiring changes to the application.