Minimum Field Lengths Within Delimited Records

By definition, the fields in positional records are all defined to have specific exact lengths. Fields in delimited records can also be defined to have a minimum length. This characteristic is defined by the [Minimum Length with Pad Character property of Field Element and Field Attribute nodes.

When you provide a nonzero value for the Minimum Length with Pad Character property, the flat file assembler will determine whether the number of data characters associated with the field is smaller than the setting of the Minimum Length with Pad Character property, the relevant pad character will be used to make up the difference.

The pad characters will be added before or after the data characters based on the setting of the Justification property for the field. When the Justification property is set to Left, any pad characters required to meet the minimum length will be added after the data characters. When the Justification property is set to Right, any pad characters required to meet the minimum length will be added before the data characters.

When you provide a nonzero value for the Minimum Length with Pad Character property, the flat file disassembler will examine the beginning or end (based on the setting of the Justification property) of the field value for the presence of the relevant pad character, and if present, the pad characters will be discarded and not appear in the equivalent XML message being constructed.

See Also

• Field Considerations
• Justification (Node Property of Flat File Schemas) and Minimum Length with Pad Character (Node Property of Flat File Schemas) in the UI guidance and developers API namespace reference