Records and fields in FSD

At the heart of the FSD is the definition of the records and fields that will appear in the flat data. A record contains fields in a fixed order, and a field defines the structure of the actual data.

Both records and fields have a name that is used to generate XML tags. So, for example, the following FSD:

<?xml encoding='UTF8' version='1.0' ?>
<schema xmlns='http://www.systemsunion.com/2001/TD/SSTransform/fsd/' version='1.0'>
		<sequence output='no'>
				<record name='parent'>
						<field name='child'/>
				</record>
		</sequence>
</schema>

will generate the following XML structure:

<parent>
		<child/>
</parent>

By default all records and fields will be generated to the output. This can be overridden by setting the output attribute to no. This is useful where you want to specify the structure of the data without causing a tag to be generated in the XML.