Chapter 4. Transforming data with Mule
This chapter covers
- How transformers behave and how you can work with them
- General-purpose transformers from Mule’s core library
- Specialized transformers from the XML module
- Transformers for JSON from the JSON module
- Custom transformers made with JVM scripting languages
Every application nowadays understands XML or JSON and uses interoperable data structures, right? If you replied yes, be informed that you live in Wonderland and, sooner or later, you’ll awake to a harsh reality! If, like most developers, you answered no, then you know why data transformation is such a key feature of an ESB.
We’re still far away from a world of unified data representation, if we ever reach that point. Unifying data requires tremendous effort. For public data models, it takes years of work by international committees to give birth to complete and complex standards. In large corporations, internal working groups or governance bodies also struggle to establish custom, unified data representations. In the meantime, the everyday life of a software developer working on integration projects is bestrewn with data transformation challenges.
When you’re done with this chapter, you’ll have a clear picture of how Mule removes data transformation millstones from your integration projects.