Brainstorm data validation techniques

As a government printing agency, we deal with a LOT of different data types, and have the continuing headache of data formats changing without notice. Has anyone developed a technique or set of techniques for validating data and trapping/reporting errors?

For CSV data I’ve thought of storing the valid header row in a database, and comparing it to the incoming file. But I’m looking for more creative solutions, perhaps something using the Data Mapper, to deeply validate data. Schema, format, field count, field types… I know the Data Mapper itself has a “validate records” feature. Is there anyway to invoke that through an API?

You can use REST API to simply validate the DataMapping Config with any file, Nothing gets stored in the database.

For more info, see PlanetPress Connect 2018.1 REST API Cookbook with Working Examples

Click your link, Phil… the HTML pages of the help site are broken. The PDF versions are ok.

I have questions! How does one get the Managed ID of… anything? Does the data file being tested have to be placed into the File Store in order to validate it?

Strange, the links work on my end, both from the email sent by the system and through this page here.

As for the Managed ID, yes, the file has to be uploaded to the FileStore first. It will eventually be deleted automatically according to your cleanup Schedule.

Maybe try this shorter link (which doesn’t include all the crap after the actual name of the html page)? PlanetPress Connect 2018.1 REST API Cookbook with Working Examples