Defining input message characteristics

Before you start:

Read the concept topic about parsers.

When a message is received by an input node in a message flow, the node detects how to interpret that message by determining the domain in which the message is defined and invoking the appropriate parser.

You can provide message domain information to the input node in one of two ways:

  1. You can configure the built-in input nodes to indicate the message domain, and therefore the parser to be invoked, for each message that it receives.
  2. You can set values in the input message itself that specify this information. Do this with the MQRFH2 header, which contains a folder that defines the message characteristics. This is a more flexible approach, because it means that the input node can make the decision based on the content of each message.

If the input message is defined in the MRM domain, and is therefore interpreted by the MRM parser, you must specify the following additional properties:

If the message is a WebSphere MQ message, these properties can be set either in the input node or in the MQRFH2 header of the incoming message (if they are set in both, the contents of the MQRFH2 header take precedence).

If the input message belongs to a message domain other than those for which a parser is supplied, you must provide a user-defined parser to handle it, and a user-defined input node to accept it for processing in the message flow. Check the documentation provided with the user-defined parser and node for further information.

If the input node cannot determine the message characteristics, the message is considered to be in the BLOB domain, and the BLOB parser is invoked.

Import the Video Rental sample or the Comma Separated Value (CSV) sample (or another sample that uses a message set) from the Samples Gallery and look at the values on the Default properties page of the input node in the sample's message flow.

Related concepts
Message flows overview
Parsers
Logical tree structure
Message modeling
Related tasks
Designing a message flow
Defining message flow content
Related reference
Built-in nodes
ESQL reference
MQRFH2 structure