shogg
commented
3 years ago How to generate Edifact definitions
- message directories https://unece.org/trade/uncefact/unedifact/download
- these are ZIPs zipped in ZIPs
- download D.96A it's still the most used format
- open it
- open TRMD.zip (MD=message directory)
- open one of the text files, like INVOIC_D.96.A
- it's a README, meant for readers
- at the end is the Segment Table (... we need to parse this)
- for old edifact message formats the README is encoded in cp437
- you can select this encoding in vscode by clicking on utf8 in the status line then select "reopen with encoding" and choose cp437 (DOS)
- it is corrected when hieroglyphs turn into lines showing groups and what is contained
- write a code generator (a tool with arguments or better a go generate tool) that converts the textual Segment Table into source code creating a new 'Msg' type in package 'spec'.
This textual Segment Table isn't a nice format but it seems to be the only way to parse arbitrary Edifact message definitions.
This issue is a "good first issue" because it doesn't need changes to existing code only code additions.
Don't include all edifact message definitions the library would be huge.