Apache has announced that Daffodil, an open source implementation of the Data Format Description Language specification (DFDL) which converts between fixed format data and XML/JSON, has reached Top Level Project status.

Daffodil was first created at the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 2009, and entered the Apache Incubator in August 2017.

Daffodil is used to convert between fixed format data and XML/JSON. It has Java and Scala APIs, provides Apache NiFI processors for parsing and unparsing NiFi FlowFiles, and has an extension to XML Calabash that declares XProc pipeline steps to parse and unparse input data.

The Data Format Description Language (DFDL) is a specification that was developed by the Open Grid Forum to create a standard way of describing different data formats, including both textual and binary, scientific and numeric, legacy and modern, commercial record-oriented, and many industry and military standards.

Michael Beckerle, Vice President of Apache Daffodil, said:

"The Daffodil DFDL implementation is a game changer in complex text and binary data interfaces and creates massive opportunities for organizations to easily implement highly sophisticated processes like data decomposition, inspection, and reassembly."

"Instead of spending a lot of time worrying about how to deal with so many kinds of data that you need to take in, from day one you can convert all sorts of data into XML, or JSON, or your preferred data structure, and convert back if you need to write data out in its original format."

Daffodil uses DFDL schemas to parse fixed format data into an infoset, which is most commonly represented as either XML or JSON, meaning developers can use XML or JSON to consume, inspect, and manipulate fixed format data. Daffodil can also be used in the reverse direction to serialize or “unparse” an XML or JSON infoset back to the original data format.

More Information

Apache Daffodil

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