The present invention, sometimes referred to as an Application Message
Wrapper Generation Wizard or Wizard (for short), is a tool to help
application developers map Cobol or Natural copybooks into a message
command for an ASCII-based text messaging service. In this sense, the
Wizard facilitates communication between client applications and server
applications by allowing the client to use generic requests and allowing
the Wizard generated files providing the correct protocol and syntax for
communication with the destination server application. The Wizard
generates Java classes that will mine/plant data a runtime between
business objects and a message string that corresponds to the copybook's
data structure, and vice versa. The Wizard recognizes different data types
of copybook fields respectively, and converts them to/from ASCII. The Java
classes generated by the Wizard also serve to abstract mainframe services
so as to encapsulate ASCI text messaging system calls from the business
layer by treating mainframe services as an ordinary operation on an object
and so as to act as a layer than can serve to pave a path for migrating
services away from a legacy environment. The generated Java code ensures
efficient runtime performance for mining/plating of data. The present
invention relates to the Wizard itself, the method of using it, the
software system using the files generated by the Wizard and the method of
using the generated software system.
