Rational Developer for System z

ACORD AL3

This topic describes ACORD AL3 messages.
The basic structure of an ACORD AL3 message is shown in Figure 1. The curled braces { } are used to indicate groupigns, but are not actually part of the data stream.
Figure 1. Basic structure of an ACORD AL3 message
ACORD Message
{
   Message Header Group;
   Transactions Group (containing one or more transactions)
   {
      Transaction_01
      {
         Transaction Header Group;
         Transaction Control Group (optional);
         Data Group Segments (one or more);
      }
      ...
   }
   Message Trailer Group;
}

There can be one or more transactions included in the Transactions Group

Each group with an ACORD AL3 message has a header consisting of a one-digit number, three letters, plus a three-digit total length count. These first seven characters can be modeled as a tag. The data within the headers is fixed length. Therefore the header type used for the overall message can be modeled as follows:

Data Element Separation = Tagged Fixed Length
Length of Tag = 7

The Transaction Group contains other groups, and is therefore modeled in the same way as the overall message. The Message Header Group and the Message Trailer group just consist of fixed length elements, therefore the type used can be modeled as:

Data Element Separation = Fixed Length

There are two Data Element Separation methods particularly suited to handling ACORD AL3 messages:
  • Fixed Length AL3 supports basic handling of ACORD AL3 messages, including situations where the message groups conform to a different version of the ACORD AL3 standard. This is deprecated and will be removed in a future version of the product and an alternative will be provided.
  • Tagged Encoded Length supports handling of more sophisticated situations, including messages containing message groups unknown to the message dictionary.
The following sections describe their use:

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