reading/writing EDI files

[kmfna]

Hello all,

I was just curious if anyone had ever had to read and write to EDI files...in this I am a newbie, and am not sure where to even start, really. I believe that I am looking down the barrel of having to develop something to work with ASC X12 formatting... So, I suppose the real question is, does anyone know of any good ways to get started? Does C# have a library I've been overlooking?? Links?? Anything could be helpful!!

Thanks in advance,
Kevin

- "The truth hurts, maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with no seat, but it hurts.

 

[oppcos]

Well, I'm not the developer here who implemented our EDI integration, but here's the way I understand it (may have flaws).

Basically, first connect via http to the EDI server (you can use the IE Active XP interop stuff, but I think it is just easier to use a socket - System.Net.Sockets). Then you download a document whose MIME type will inform you that it is an EDI document that follows. The MIME header comes in as plain text and most EDI formats are very similar to XML documents (mostly text but can contain binary sections). There are about 300 ASC X12 transaction commands, so get a good reference (?) in front of you and start working the rest out from there.

This would be a good candidate for a library or open source project, but I haven't seen such a thing. Hope that is somewhat helpful.

 

[kmfna]

cool...thanks, I knew a little bit about the connection and pulling back the data, so I'm not worried about that, it was finding a good reference that is killing me...it seems that everyone is charging for this information, even though you would think that it would be free information. I can't even find a list of the commands/reserved characters. I know a few of them, but not enough to be greatly helpful... Also, aside from this, it seems that there are a LOT of different versions of the formatting, each like a different language and none really similar enough to make overlapping development easy.

Anyway, thanks again, any more advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

- "The truth hurts, maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with no seat, but it hurts.

 

[oppcos]

I definitely feel your pain there. I know my company had to pay quite a lot for reference material on integration (different EDI specs though, sorry).