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Front Office Loader User Manual

Table of Contents
Synopsis
General
Configuration
Environment Variables
File Formats
Log File
Deal File
Database Configuration File
Signal Handling
Periodic Cleanup
Appendix A - Sample db.conf File
Appendix B - Sample Deal File
Page Last Updated 10/19/2000

Front Office Loader User Manual

Synopsis
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fol servername portnumber [filename]

or

foltst filename
General
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Please note: this product loads deals into both front and back office systems; therefore, the terms are used interchangeably.

fol connects to a specific intranet deal server (servername) port (portnumber). Once connected, fol gathers deal data from this connection which it loads into the designated Front-Office system. If the optional argument filename is present, fol also appends a text record to the named file for each deal that is received. The format of this file is suitable for use with the foltst program (see later).

foltst reads deals from a textfile dumped from the fol program, loading each deal into the designated Front-Office system.

Configuration
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When fol or foltst starts, a file called db.conf in the designated working directory is read. db.conf contains information about how to load the data.

Environment Variables
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The default behaviour for certain interface functions may be modified by the use of “environment variables”. These variables must be set prior to the interface execution (usually in a “shell” or “batch” file).

DL_SYBASE_IFILE On UNIX DBLIB deal loaders, this variable may contain the location of the Sybase Interface File that defines how to contact the database server host.
File Formats
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Log File
A logfile named client<MMDD>.log (where <MMDD> stands for the digits representing the month and day that the file was created) is appended to as log-events occur. A deal identifier is logged whenever a deal is passed to the BOS.

If fol is left running overnight, a new logfile is automatically created as soon as necessary after midnight.

foltst does not create logfiles, rather all its output is directed to the "standard output" stream. foltst is designed as a minimal facility, "oneshot" deal loader. If foltst's output will need to be examined at a later date its output may be directed to a file using command-line redirection at a DOS or UNIX command prompt e.g.

foltst dumpeddeals > logfile
Deal File
If the optional filename argument is specified when fol is invoked, a plain text (editable) record is appended to this filename for every deal that is received. Each record has three sections as follows:

  1. TCID:######
    Where TCID is the 4 character deal-server identifier e.g. QUOT or WAGA and the hashes represent the digits of the ticket number.
  2. [1]<SourceDesignator>
    Where SourceDesignator is the single character 'E' for EBS or 'R' for Reuters and all other characters are literal i.e.'[1]<>' really means the chacters bracket, one, bracket, less-than, greater-than
  3. [2]<DealData>
    Where DealData is the actual data to be loaded and all other characters are literal. The DealData ends when the two-character sequence "greater-than" followed immediately by "newline" are detected, thus imbedded newlines are allowable within the deal data. Pathologically, this two-character sequence imbedded within real data will cause foltst to ignore the remaining data for the deal containing this sequence. This circumstance is deemed to be unlikely to cause any real problem (go ahead Murphey, prove me wrong :-} ).

Completely coincidentally, this file format is exactly what is required as input to the foltst application. See Appendix B for an example of this file.

Database Configuration File
In the case of a DBLIB load, the db.conf's file format is as follows:

Lines, in the file db.conf, starting with the "hash" character (#) are ignored (they are comments or temporarily disabled configuration lines).

A line containing four (optionally five) white-space separated tokens is interpreted as follows:

  1. UserName
    The name of a user authorized to load deals to the target database
  2. Password
    The password for the above database user
  3. Server
    The hostname or IP number of the database server
  4. StoredProcedureName
    The stored procedure name that will actually do the database insert
  5. UseParameter (optional)
    An optional string representing the "use" parameter for the database server

See Appendix A for an example of this file.

Signal Handling
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On UNIX operating systems, the program catches SIGINT, SIGHUP, and SIGTERM. When one of these signals is detected, the program exits cleanly, closing sockets and writing shutdown information to the logfile. Up to and including MacOS 9, only SIGINT is caught, causing clean program termination. Under MSWindows, both SIGINT and SIGTERM receive this treatment.

On UNIX operating systems, SIGPIPE is caught and its passage is noted in the logfile.

Periodic Cleanup
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Disk space is consumed according to the number of errors detected by fol. Each day that fol is executed, 1 new file (a log file) is created in the fol execution directory. It is suggested that these files are archived and/or deleted from the drive every few months.

Appendix A - Sample db.conf File
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# DBUserName passwd Server StoredProcName [UseName] (this is a comment line)
me mypassword myDBServerHostName insert_pipe

Appendix B - Sample Deal File
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WACO:43832
[1]<R>
[2]<999025WAGA04383223MAR20001322295000012 ...snip... 581001 582001 583001 >

QUOT:44889
[1]<E>
[2]<999025QUOT04488901JUL199604000070100544889 ...snip... 776015000000000000000>

Page Last Updated 10/19/2000