How to convert a Delimited String into an Array using OIC.

👤 Audience: Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) Developers and enthusiasts

📘 Topic: Working with payload-to-file use cases in OIC Gen3

In real-world integrations, it’s common to receive data in a compact form -often as a comma-separated (or otherwise delimited) string. While concise, this format isn’t always convenient for downstream processing, especially when your flow expects a structured array.

With Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) Gen 3, there’s a neat way to solve this problem using an XSLT function called:

oraext:create-nodeset-from-delimited-string(ArrayName, SourceString, Delimiter)

Business Scenario

Let’s say your REST API receives the following Delimited String payload:

{
"EmailString":"email1@gmail.com,email2@gmail.com,email3@gmail.com"
}        

We need to transform it into a structured array like this:

{
	"ArrayOfemails": [
		{
			"Email": "email1@gmail.com"
		},
		{
			"Email": "email2@gmail.com"
		},
		{
			"Email": "email@gmail.com"
		}
	]
}        

This allows downstream systems to process each email as a discrete element -ideal for looping, validations, or targeted transformations in the mapper.

Understanding the Function

The oraext:create-nodeset-from-delimited-string function takes three arguments:

oraext:create-nodeset-from-delimited-string(arg1, arg2, arg3)

arg1--> New Array Name we wanted to create

arg2--> Source Delimited String Input-

arg3--> Delimiter inside the Source String- Comma

📌 Important Note: This function must be used inside a for-each loop since it returns an array.

XSLT Mapper Implementation

Here’s how it looks in your OIC XSLT Mapper:

<xsl:template match="/" xml:id="id_11">
	<nstrgmpr:executeResponse xml:id="id_12">
		<ns16:response-wrapper>
			<ns16:emails>
				<xsl:for-each select="oraext:create-nodeset-from-delimited-string (&quot;{}ArrayofEmails&quot;, /nstrgmpr:execute/ns16:request-wrapper/ns16:EmailString, &quot;,&quot; )">
					<ns16:Email>
						<xsl:value-of select="."/>
					</ns16:Email>
				</xsl:for-each>
			</ns16:emails>
		</ns16:response-wrapper>
	</nstrgmpr:executeResponse>
</xsl:template>        

<xsl:for-each select="oraext:create-nodeset-from-delimited-string (&quot;{}ArrayofEmails&quot;, /nstrgmpr:execute/ns16:request-wrapper/ns16:EmailString, &quot;,&quot; )"> This is how we are looping the array returned from splitting the string

<ns16:Email><xsl:value-of select="."/> </ns16:Email> This maps the email address from the For each array loop

Sample Input

EmailString--->>"email1@gmail.com,email2@gmail.com,email3@gmail.com"
        

Expected Output

<ns16:response-wrapper>
	<ns16:emails>
		<ns16:Email>email1@gmail.com</ns16:Email>
		<ns16:Email>email2@gmail.com</ns16:Email>
		<ns16:Email>email3@gmail.com</ns16:Email>
	</ns16:emails>
</ns16:response-wrapper>        

Why This Matters

• Improved Data Structure: Converts flat delimited strings into structured arrays.
• Loop-Friendly: Ideal for iterating over values without additional parsing logic.
• Cleaner Integrations: Keeps downstream mappings simpler and more readable.

Use Case Demo:

Showing a different Example

Final Thoughts

This approach is a clean, reusable pattern in Oracle Integration Cloud Gen 3. If you frequently deal with delimited values in REST or file-based integrations, leveraging oraext:create-nodeset-from-delimited-string will save you time and keep your mapping logic elegant.

Have you used this function in your integrations?

Drop your experiences in the comments-I’d love to hear how others are applying it in real-world OIC projects. Do comment on your way of approach to this use case.

#OracleIntegration #OIC #XSLT #IntegrationPatterns #CloudIntegration #OracleCloud