Author: Kevin Feasel

Ben Weissman now has nothing to stop him from writing bad VB code in Biml:

Previously, you had to declare any kind of variable and object type (instead of just using something like “var” in C#):

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<#@template Language="VB" #> <Biml xmlns="http://schemas.varigence.com/biml.xsd"> <Packages> <# for n as integer = 1 to 25 #>     <Package Name="MyAutomatedBiml<#= n #>"/> <# next#> </Packages> </Biml>

That was true even for the most simple cases like for n as integer = 1 to 25 instead of just for n = 1 to 25, even though it is clear that his can never be anything else in this context.

Now, you can use two new attributes in the template definition: optionexplicit and/or optionstrict

Read the whole thing if you want to write VB code in Biml.  If you want to write C# code in Biml, keep doing your thing.  If you want to write F# in Biml, the pitchfork mob is organizing over here.

Shannon Lowder has an imposing-sounding project which does some very cool things:

After building connections, you need to build the file formats.  01_FileFormats.biml calls the interrogator class I built and tries to guess the structure of the files.  The script takes that information and then builds the Biml structure representing the layout of any csv or txt files it finds in SourceFolder. You can run this like the connections, Ctrl-click 00_GetOutput and 01_FileFormats, then right-click on the highlighted area and choose Generate SSIS Packages. You can then see the FileFormat nodes in output.biml.

After you have a biml representation of FileFormats, you can then generate the connections for the FlatFiles.  FlatFile connections have a required attribute for FileFormat. To see the code for the connections, you have to select 00_GetOutput, 01_FileFormats, and 02_Connections-FlatFiles. Then output will contain both the FileFormats and Connections to the flat files!

Read on for more details.