Using XML with Legacy Business Applications

New DataCell Methods and Derived Classes

We can use most of the DataCell classes and methods we developed in the previous chapters. We need only a few new ones in this chapter to satisfy some of the X12 data type formatting requirements. We'll handle the X12 data types as follows.

• Numeric: We create a DataCellX12N class from the existing DataCellN class. The DataCellX12N class uses the base class's fromXML and toXML methods but has its own prepareOutput method since a minus sign, if present, is not included when considering the length, and we use only a zero for the fill character.

• Decimal Number: We create a DataCellX12R class from the existing DataCellReal class. Like the DataCallX12N class, this new class uses the base class's toXML method. ...