DSXchange

We are using DS 8.0. Need quick help to confirm if we can export DataStage jobs from server side in XML format. As far as I know, istools utility can be used to export jobs from server side but the format is ISX and not XML.

One of our requirement is to export jobs in bulk in XML format and parse the XML to perform some validation. Currently we are exporting from client using dscmdexport.

I have gone through the threads that were available on this topic but I would know if there is any workaround. Is there any way or workaround to export jobs in XML format from server side?

I have seen threads suggesting that isx files are compressed xml files. I have not tried to uncompress one (with what utility I'm not sure) to check. Since it's a different utility, I would expect the xml to be different too, but again I don't know about that yet.

You should still have the dscmdexport.exe on the client which you can still use for xml then FTP or copy back to the server for processing.

We have setup Samba open source software on a unix server, which allows us to map a shared drive from any Windows client to a share on the unix server. If you map it as drive K: for example then from any Windows software you can read and write files to the unix server, drag and drop, etc., by accessing Windows drive K:.

Thanks Eric. I'll explore more on converting ISX to XML if the uncompressed XML format from the tool is similar to the one we get when we do an export.
But If I have to run dscmdexport.exe, I need DS client installed on a system. Is there a way a user who is not having a DS client installed be able to run this command if the server, project, credentials are provided through a file.
We are working on building a tool to export job XMLs and perform some validation. But the limitation now is user with a DS Client only will be able to run this. I was looking for if there would be any workaround.

qt_ky wrote:I have seen threads suggesting that isx files are compressed xml files.

What I have heard (but have not confirmed) is that they are compressed form of dsx files.

OK, I finally had time to check into this isx format and here's what I found:

I took an isx file generated by my istool script that runs each night on the AIX server to export complete DataStage/QualityStage 8.7 projects, one isx file per project.

Viewing the file shows it's binary. I copied the isx file to *.Z, *.gz, and *.zip and the one that expanded OK was the *.zip file by using an "unzip" program on AIX. I found an unzip program available within an AIX Oracle client directory. If you don't have unzip on AIX then you can also use the java jar utility to unzip it.

The unzip created two subdirectories: one containing an XML manifest file and the other named after the server containing a directory structure that followed the repository hierarchy from within the project. At the lowest level were one *.pjb file per job, one *.tbd file per table definition, one *.pst file per parameter set, etc. All those files contain XML.

It turns out that you can run unzip directly on the isx file with no need to rename it to *.zip first.

The suffixes are important. ".pjb" is not just a job; it's a parallel job. Can you guess what ".mjb", ".qjb" and ".sjb" are?

.sjb = Server Job
.qjb = Sequence Job
.mjb = ?? Job (is it a template job?)

Found some more:

.srt = Server Routine
.dqs = Match Specifications & Rulesets

There should be others:

.??? = Parallel Routine

There are lots of others. .mjb is mainframe job.