Record Nodes

In BizTalk Editor, you use a Record node to represent a collection of information, the individual items of which can be:

  • Simple types of information, such as strings and numbers, represented as child field nodes. These child field nodes can be either Field Element nodes or Field Attribute nodes. For additional information about these two types of field nodes, see Field Element Nodes and Field Attribute Nodes.

  • Complex types of information, represented as child Record nodes or as a group node (Sequence Group node, Choice Group node, or All Group node).

  • Any unexamined type of information, represented as child Any Element or Any Attribute nodes.

  • Groups of attributes represented by an Attribute Group node.

    When you insert a new child node into a Record node, the child node is always inserted at the end of the current child nodes. Within the XML Schema definition (XSD) language representation, new elements are added to the end of their corresponding areas, meaning that nonattribute elements are added to the end of the elements within the sequence, choice, all, or group element, and attribute elements are added to the end of any other attribute elements, all of which occur after the sequence, choice, all, or group element.

XSD representation

When first inserted, the XSD representation of a new Record node consists of only three lines, as shown in the following example.

<xs:element name="Record">  
      <xs:complexType />  
</xs:element>  

When any child node other than one of the three attribute nodes (Field Attribute, Attribute Group, and Any Attribute) is added to a Record node, by default it is placed within a sequence element within the complexType element. The sequence element is added when the first nonattribute child node is added, and removed if all the nonattribute child nodes are deleted. All three types of attribute nodes are added within the complexType element, but outside and after any sequence element.

The sequence element within which nonattribute child nodes are added can also be a choice or all element if you change the Group Order Type (Node Property of All Schemas) property of the corresponding node in the schema tree to Choice or All, respectively.

In the following example, the Record node has been renamed shipTo. The locations within the Record node where attribute and nonattribute nodes are added are shown in brackets.

<xs:element name="">  
    <xs:complexType>  
        <xs:sequence>  
            [Nonattribute child nodes of the record go here.]  
            [Always add new nonattribute child nodes to the end.]  
        </xs:sequence>  
            [Attribute child nodes of the record go here.]  
            [Always add new attribute child nodes to the end.]  
    </xs:complexType>  
</xs:element>  

See Also