EDI info needed

[Dimandja]

I am a VB.NET developer, and I need to understand EDI.

Is there a good tutorial you can point me to?

What is EDI anyway?

Thanks.

 

[dyarwood]

There are many standards used within EDI. Which particular one are you looking at?

 

[BocaBurger]

Also, ANSI X12, EDIFACT, Tradacoms, etc. Try a Goodle search on "EDI tutorial".


BocaBurger
<===========================||////////////////|0
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[Dimandja]

I found a tutorial. Thanks.

I will be talking to a potential client on Monday. I have not been able to get details from them. All I know is the industry does manufacturing -- hardware parts.

After I go through the tutorial, I may have educated questions for this forum.

In the meantime, are there EDI .NET packages?

Thanks.

 

[dyarwood]

There are plenty of packages out there that will do the job for you but I'm guessing you want to create your own.

My advice would be create xml formats of the EDI document standards you use. That way they can be transformed into whatever format required.

 

[BocaBurger]

XML? Why? Why not just use the good old ANSI X12 that works, requires less bandwidth and storage and also can be converted to anything you need.
XML on top of EDI is like putting a heavy sock on top of a condom. It doesn't help, and makes the job much less pleasureable, and needs to be disposed of when you are done anyway, and you are left with 1/2 a pair of socks



BocaBurger
<===========================||////////////////|0
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[dyarwood]

The reason I used XML was populating from a SQL Server db made data collection very easy into structure which then could be mapped even easier into any flat file output. The app I created did more than just EDI invoices. It did involve XML invoices to.