System and method for reporting message format errors in a format independent manner

摘要

Nodes (10, 12, 14) in a data communication network ex­change data in the form of data messages. The data messag­es may be hierarchical structures with one or more levels of parent and child structures. A message received at a network node (10, 12, 14) may be tested for format errors. Any node which performs such a function contains a stored format definition table for each message expected to be received. The table sets for the hierarchy of the various structures in the message and sets forth allowable parame­ters for each of those structures. A received message is decomposed into its structures using general purpose parsing logic. Each structure is analyzed against the stored definition for the structure. Format errors are reported using a general purpose report format which contains both an error code indicating the kind of error found and a structure report which identifies the hierar­chy of the structure at which the error was found.