Writing Parsers and Serializers in C# for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002
Microsoft Corporation
March 2003
Applies to:
Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2002
Microsoft® .NET Framework
Microsoft® Visual Studio® .NET
Summary: Download code, and learn how to write a pair of custom parser and serializer components using Visual C#. (2 printed pages)
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002 ships with built-in parsers and serializers that parse and serialize documents from or to the following formats:
- Extensible Markup Language (XML)
- Delimited or positional flat files
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) X12 or EDIFACT
To handle custom document formats not listed above, you need to write either a custom parser or serializer Component Object Model (COM) components or both. The parser implements a corresponding interface—IBizTalkParserComplement, and the COM components implements the IBizTalkSerializerComponent interface. Previously, because none of these interfaces support automation, writing custom parsers and serializers could only be achieved in the C or C++ languages. However with the built-in support for COM interoperability in the Microsoft .NET Framework, you can now write custom parsers and serializers for BizTalk Server 2002 in any .NET-compliant language, such as C#, Visual Basic® .NET, Visual J#™, and so on. This paper describes how to write a pair of custom parser and serializer components using Visual C#.
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