What is a “selector”?
A Smooks transformation is specified as a series of “resource” configurations (typically made in an XML file). Smooks loads/looks-up/”selects” a resource at runtime through the resources configuration “selector” value. For an XML fragment (Element) transformation resource, the selector value is the XML Element name. When Smooks passes over the message and encounters each Element, it uses the Element’s name to “select” the resources to be applied to that message fragment. A “selector” is not always an XML Element name however. An example of this would be message parser resource configurations (CSV parser, EDI parser etc), where the selector is always “org.xml.sax.driver “.
