Kourier Glossary

Address: Uniquely identifies the location of a specific data source. When specified in a DSN, the address may be a partial address that is merged with the append address in a Kourier service. For a complete description of addresses, refer to the Kourier DSN Guide.
Append Address: Used in a Kourier service, it provides additional address information that is merged onto the end of an address specified in a DSN. For more information on how append addresses are used, refer to the Kourier DSN Guide.
ASCII Format: A file containing one or more records, each of which consists of a string of data delimited by a form-feed character (ASCII 12). Each record, in turn, consists of several lines of text each delimited by the OS end-of-line character (EOL). The first line of each record is the record ID. All of the remaining lines are the data record. This format is compatible with the wIntegrate ASCII export format.

Class: Part of a DSN specification, it defines the fundamental type of each message that the DSN can transfer and specifies how the messages are transferred. For more information on classes and the different classes that are available in Kourier, refer to the Kourier DSN Guide.
Credentials: These are the username and password used to authenticate a user for any secured resource. Typical resources that require credentials are FTP servers and SMTP servers. Kourier uses credentials as part of the definition of DSNs in Data Source Names.
Data Source Name: Kourier uses DSNs to transfer messages between U2 and other applications such as a corporate intranet or a CRM application. A source DSN defines where an application places messages to be retrieved by Kourier and imported into U2. A target DSN defines where Kourier sends messages from U2 to be processed by another application. Use Data Source Names to create new DSNs, or see the Kourier DSN Guide for more information.

Document Type Definition: A document type definition (DTD) describes the structure of an XML document. It specifies which elements can contain which other elements, which elements are optional and which are required, and which elements contain data. A DTD can be an internal or external document. An internal DTD is inside the XML document that uses it. An external DTD is in a separate file.
A DTD serves the same purpose as an XML Schema, except that it contains fewer specialized types of nodes than an XML schema. The most visible difference is that an XML Schema is not defined in XML.

DSN: See Data Source Name

DTD: See Document Type Definition.

EOL: EOL is the operating system-specific character sequence that delimits lines of text. On Windows-based systems, EOL consists of the two character, Carriage-Return-Linefeed sequence (ASCII 13, ASCII 10). On UNIX systems, EOL is a single Linefeed character (ASCII 10).

Extensible Markup Language: XML is a simplified subset of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) that provides a file format for representing data, a method for describing data structure, and a mechanism for extending and annotating HTML with semantic information. Allowing an unlimited set of tags, XML tags indicate what kind of data each tag contains, rather than indicating how something should look. For instance, a tag might hold a price, an order number, or a name. The flexibility of XML allows the document's author to determine what kind of data to use and to choose the tag types that best fit the author's needs.
As a universal data format, XML provides a standard for the server-to-server transfer of different types of structured data so that the information can be decoded, manipulated, and displayed consistently and correctly. In addition, it enables the development of three-tier Web applications, acting as the data transfer format between the middle-tier Web server and the client.

Extensible Stylesheet Language: XSL is a language for expressing stylesheets. It consists of three parts: XSL Transformations (XSLT): a language for transforming XML documents; the XML Path Language (XPath), an expression language used by XSLT to access or refer to parts of an XML document; and and XSL Formatting Objects, an XML vocabulary for specifying formatting semantics. An XSL stylesheet specifies the presentation of a class of XML documents by describing how an instance of the class is transformed into an XML document that uses the formatting vocabulary.

File Transfer Protocol: A communication protocol used to transfer files to and from a computer running an FTP server. Kourier provides an FTP class that can be used to transfer messages between U2 and an application using an FTP server. Use Data Source Names to create DSNs, or see the Kourier DSN Guide for more information about FTP-class DSNs.

Form: See Import Specification

FTP: See File Transfer Protocol

HTTP: A communication protocol used to transfer data to and from a computer running an HTTP server. Kourier provides an HTTPGET class and an HTTPPOST class that can be used to transfer messages between U2 and an application using an HTTP server. Use Data Source Names to create DSNs, or see the Kourier DSN Guide for more information about HTTPGET-class and HTTPPOST-class DSNs.
Kourier Command: A specially written program that is used in a Kourier service. The most common Kourier Commands are KMK.IMPORT for importing data into U2 and KMK.EXPORT for exporting data from U2. Refer to Kourier Commands for a complete list of available commands and Writing Kourier Commands for information on how to write your own custom command for use with Kourier.
Message: Data that an application sends to one or more other applications. A message typically notifies the receiving application when an event occurs or when data is created or updated. Kourier transfers messages between U2 and other applications to exchange data. Refer to the Kourier Messaging Guide for more information.
Message Header: One or more named values that provide additional information about the contents of a message. Headers may provide routing information that describes how the message was generated and where it is supposed to go, such as the To: header in an e-mail. Headers may also describe the contents of the message, such as when a message contains a TAB-delimited ASCII file that contains customer information.
Message Property: See Message Header
Message Template: A reusable document that Kourier typically uses to generate e-mails. Message templates typically contain substitution tags that are replaced with context-sensitive data that is determined at the time that the message is sent. To create or update a message template, use E-mail Message Template.

Message Template Context: The data that Kourier uses when dynamically substituting values into a message template. When sending a template that includes dictionary-type substitution tags, the context is the current record and record ID. Similarly, message templates can refer to programmatically generated data that must be passed as the context for generating the message. Use E-mail Message Template to create the message templates that require the context, and read about substitution tags for more information on what type of contextual data is required for the tags used.

Namespace: A naming convention to use in order to avoid name collisions.

NFS: See Network File System.

Network File System: The Network File System (NFS) is a client/server application that lets a computer user view and optionally store and update file on a remote computer as though they were on the user's own computer. The user's system needs to have an NFS client and the other computer needs the NFS server. Both of them require that you also have TCP/IP installed since the NFS server and client use TCP/IP as the program that sends the files and updates back and forth.

Password: The password portion of credentials used to authenticate a user to access a resource. Typical resources that require credentials are FTP servers and SMTP servers. Kourier uses credentials as part of the definition of DSNs in Data Source Names.

Publication Mode: Determines how Kourier generates documents when a publication is generated. The mode controls whether the document is sent electronically, printed or both.
Queue: A storage space that holds messages until the receiving computer can process them. Use Queue Administration to maintain messages that have been queued as a result of processing Kourier services.

Samba: Samba is a popular freeware program that allows end users to access and use files, printers, and other commonly shared resources on a company's intranet or on the Internet. Samba is often referred to as a Network File System and can be installed on a variety of operating system platforms, including: Linux, most common Unix platforms, OpenVMS, and OS/2.

Sequence Counter: A unique counter associated with each DSN. The sequence counter is updated each time a message is sent to, or received from, a given DSN. The sequence counter can be updated using Queue Administration. The sequence counter is often used in DSNs to ensure that older messages sent to a target application are not accidentally overwritten with newer messages. Refer to the Kourier DSN Guide for information on using this tag in a DSN.
Service: A process used to move data between your U2 application and other applications. A service can retrieve messages from a source DSN, process them using one or more service commands, and then send the processed messages onto a target DSN. Use Services to create or update services, or refer to the Kourier Services Guide for information on how to use Kourier services.
Service Command: See Kourier Command

Severity: A number that reflects the priority of of a given event type. Refer to Event Log Filter for information on different severities.

Substitution Tag: Substitution tags are identifiers that you may include in the fields of an e-mail message template or any other field that supports substitutions. Kourier substitutes these tags with dynamic data that provide information specific to a given process. Refer to Substitution Tags for information on various formats of substitution tags.

UNC: UNC, short for Universal Naming Convention or Uniform Naming Convention, is a naming convention used primarily to specify and map network drives in Microsoft Windows. Support for UNC also appears in other operating systems via technologies like Samba. UNC names are most commonly used to reach file servers or printers on a LAN. UNC names consist of three parts - a server name, a share name, and an optional file path. These three elements are combined using backslashes as follows: \\server\share\file_path

Note: The UNC syntax is sometimes written with forward slashes. In Windows the forward slashes and back slashes are equivalent, but many programs will accept only backward slashes, and some will only accept double backslashes (ie \\\\server\\share), especially in quoted string constants, due to the standard use of backslash as an escape character.; The server portion of a UNC name references the strings maintained by a network naming service such as DNS or WINS. Server names are set by a system administrator. The share portion of a UNC name references a label created by an administrator or, in some cases, within the operating system. In most versions of Microsoft Windows, for example, the built-in share name admin$ refers to the root directory of the operating system installation (usually C:\WINNT or C:\WINDOWS). The file path portion of a UNC name references the local subdirectories beneath the share point


Username: The username portion of credentials used to authenticate a user to access a resource. Typical resources that require credentials are FTP and SMTP servers. Kourier uses credentials as part of the definition of DSNs in Data Source Names.
XML: See Extensible Markup Language.

XML Schema: An XML Schema defines an XML markup vocabulary for specifying the structure of an XML document. In an XML Schema, elements that contain subelements or attributes are complex types. Elements that contain data but do not contain subelements or attributes are simple types. Attributes are always simple types.
An XML Schema serves the same purpose as a DTD, except that it contains more specialized types of nodes than a DTD schema. The most visible difference is that an XML Schema is defined in XML, while a DTD is not.
XSL: See Extensible Stylesheet Language.

XSLT: See XSL Transformations.

XSL Transformations: The XSL Transformations specification defines an XML-based language for expressing transformation rules that map one XML document to another. XSLT has many of the constructs found in traditional programming languages, including variables, functions, iteration, and conditional statements.

Kourier Glossary

User Guide - Table of Contents