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.