Processing complex files with ODI

A new and highly underutilized feature introduced in ODI 11.1.1.5.0 was the ability to leverage complex files such as a source and target for integrations. Previously, ODI could handle many different types of files out of the box, such as delimited, fixed length, XML, and many other variations. But how would you handle a flat file sent from a vendor that has multiple record formats within the same file? The file could have many different types of delimiters as well as record formats. For example, the following line of a file has many different delimiters as well as objects within the line:

123456,^Joeseph Kraichely^15th Street,1923,Soulard,63104,US, MO, 314-555-1212

This row contains a person record, person is a complex object made up of an ID, Name, and an Address. Each of these can be defined in the schema descriptor for the file, this is stored in an native XSD (nXSD). The nXSD file defines how the records are delimited and how each delimited item is stored...