IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Programming IBM BPM > Enterprise Service Bus programming > Data Transformation
Business Object Map and Mapping mediation primitives
There can be structural differences in the types of data within the source and target XML message body type.
An example is shown in Figure 1. The only way that the two applications can communicate is by using a transformation. Data transformation takes place within the mediation flow component.
You can transform the entire message or a particular subsection of a message. When transforming the structure of a message, the two most useful mediation primitives are:
- Mapping (previously named XSL Transformation or XSLT) mediation primitive
- Business Object Mapper (BO Mapper) mediation primitive
Figure 1. Hover pane showing the source and target XML message type
Both the Mapping and the BO Mapper mediation primitives transform the SMO. The difference is that the Mapping mediation primitive changes message body content according to an XSL style sheet or a Business Object Map (BO Map). The BO Mapper mediation primitive changes the message body content, according to a BO Map which is created in the Integration Designer. Both of these mediation primitives allow services that use different business objects to communicate and exchange data.
Within the Integration Designer tools, the Mapping Editor makes populating a target XML document with data from a source XML document a visual task. The Mapping Editor is used by both the Mapping and BO Mapper mediation primitives. The source message structure for the interface and the target message structure for the interface are within the Mapping Editor. By drawing connections between the source and target fields, you create mappings between the source and target elements and attributes.
Within a transformation of the entire SMO, you can store data outside of the message body, for retrieval by downstream primitives.
For example, the context of the SMO can be used to store or retrieve data from either the transient context if it is required in the same flow (request or response) or the correlation context if it is needed in both request and response flows.
- Comparison between the Mapping and BO Mapper mediation primitives
There is some overlap between the capabilities of the BO Mapper and the Mapping (previously called the XSL Transformation) mediation primitives. The following table summarizes the different capabilities of each. - Example scenarios
In this scenario, a fictitious company, Personal Holidays have a holiday booking system.