Functions
In MapForce, you can use the following categories of functions to transform data:
•MapForce built-in functions
•User-defined functions
•Custom functions
•Node functions and defaults (Professional and Enterprise editions)
•Web service calls (Enterprise Edition)
For more information, see the subsections below.
MapForce built-in functions
Built-in functions are predefined in MapForce. You can use them in your mappings to perform a wide range of processing tasks. For information about the available built-in functions, see Function Library Reference.
User-defined functions (UDFs)
UDFs are MapForce functions that you create yourself, using various component kinds and built-in functions already available in MapForce. For details, see User-Defined Functions.
Custom functions
You can import custom functions from external sources such as XSLT libraries, XQuery library modules, Java .class files, .NET .dll files, Python libraries, and use them in your mappings. To be reusable in MapForce, your custom functions must return data of simple type (such as a string or integer) and accept parameters of simple type.
For more information, see:
•Custom Java and .NET Libraries
You can import custom external libraries of functions in the following ways:
•Directly (no configuration required)
•By configuring a MapForce Function File (MFF)
If you choose to configure an MMF file, you can import C++ libraries, in addition to Java classes and .NET assemblies. Note that libraries imported via MFF files must meet the prerequisites mentioned in Referencing Java, C# and C++ Libraries Manually.
Node functions and defaults (Professional and Enterprise editions)
Node functions and defaults let you create and apply custom processing logic to one or multiple descendant nodes in a mapping component. Node functions and defaults allow processing data before it reaches a node of a mapping structure or immediately after it leaves a node. For details, see Defaults and Node Functions.
Web service calls (Enterprise Edition)
MapForce enables you to make a call to a previously defined web service (a WSDL-based service or a generic HTTP API). For details, see Web Service Calls.