METHOD FOR CREATING A RELATIONAL DESCRIPTION OF A FORMATTED TRANSACTION

Methods for creating and using a relational description of a formatted transaction while maintaining data element context are provided. The formatted transaction can be in electronic data interchange (EDI) format or another structured transaction format. A computer receiving the formatted transaction generates or is provided with a set of assignments of unique persistent tags to all possible data element contexts that are of interest. As the transaction is being parsed, each of its data elements is tagged with the appropriate unique persistent tag that identifies its context. Each data element is then written to a field in a relation in which the column name of the field matches the unique persistent tag. Data elements that can occur only once in a transaction are written to a root relation, while data elements that can occur multiple times are written to a subrelation. Data elements that can occur multiple times within a group of data elements that itself can iterate as a group are written to a nested subrelation, up to any depth of nesting allowed by the transaction format definition. The invention also provides a method for constructing a transaction from a relational description.