Character Encoding in the Flat File Assembler Pipeline Component

The Flat File Assembler can produce messages in user-specified character encoding. You can specify the character encoding at several levels:

Schema. Set the codepage property in the flat file schema for the document.
Component. Set the Target Charset component property in Pipeline Designer.
Message. Set the XMLNorm.TargetCharset property on the message context.

The value of the property set on a message context always overrides the one set in Pipeline Designer. Also, the value set in Pipeline Designer always overwrites the value set as a codepage property in a flat file document schema.

The Flat File Assembler uses the following algorithm to determine which encoding to use for an output message:
If the XMLNorm.TargetCharset context property is set, its value is used for encoding.
Otherwise, if the Target charset property in Pipeline Designer is specified, its value is used.
Otherwise, if the codepage property in the flat file schema is specified, its value is used.
Otherwise, if the XMLNorm.SourceCharset property is specified, its value is used.
Otherwise, "UTF-8" is used. Note that the Flat File Assembler pipeline component does not put byte order mark on outgoing messages when UTF-8 encoding is used.

The Flat File Assembler saves encoding information on the body part of the BizTalk message object in the IBaseMessagePart.Charset property.

See Also