Talend Components

Introduction to Talend Components

Talend provides efficient software solutions with the flexibility to meet the data integration needs of all types of organizations. All the Talend operations are performed with the help of components and connectors. There are more than 800+ components available within the palette section which carries out several operations. Users can simply drag the components from the pallet section or just double click the component to create a java code for compilation. The components are categorized into 21 major categories, in this article we will learn more about these categories.

Categories of Talend Components

Given below are different categories in which talend components are segregated:

1. Orchestration

Components under orchestration families allow users to control and manage the job execution process.

• tPreJob Component: This component of the orchestration family helps in the smooth running of the job and eliminating errors during job failure. This component assigns tasks equally between the job initialization component and the main intended task component. Jobs such as testing connectivity to external services fall under pre-job tasks.
• tPostJob: This component bypasses any exception and executes the job which makes it ideal for cleanups. Tasks such as temporary file deletion and disconnecting from the data based are considered as post job tasks.
• tRunJob: This component is used to embed one job into another to create Talend SubJob.

2. Processing Components

Components belonging to processing families are used to work and transform the data.

• tMap: This is one of the most important components used to perform data manipulating operations on the data such as data merge and filtering the data. The primary function of the tMap component is mapping the input component to the output component.
• tBufferInput: This component is paired along with tBufferOutput. Data written to tBufferOutput can be read using tBufferInput component.
• tBufferOutput: The tBufferOutput helps in writing the data to the buffer, which can be later accessed by tBufferInput.
• tAggregateRow: This component is used to perform aggregate functions like sum, count, average on the data row.
• tFilterRow: Simple conditions can be used to filter the data using the tFilterRow component.

3. Custom Code

Talend’s custom code components provide users with functionality beyond Talend’s inbuilt components. With the help of these components, the user can create a custom component by connecting multiple components together.

• tJava: This component is used to execute java codes. With the help of the tJava component, users can enter personalized code which can be integrated with the Talend job.
• tGroovy : This component allows users to insert Groovy script also known as simplified java syntax in order to integrate with Talend.
• tJavaFlex: This component is very similar to tJava row component and includes the ability to combine the functionality of tJava and tJavaRow.
• tSetGlobalVar: This component is used to add global variables to the global map.

4. File Component

Components available within the File family are used to read the data from the source file and write to the destination file.

•  tFileInputDelimited: This component is used to read the file row by row based on a row separator.
• tFileInput Excel: This component is used to read the data from an excel file row by row.
• tMySqlInput: This component extracts the data from the MySql database based on the input query.
• tFileOutputDelimited: This component is used as the output component and is useful in writing the filtered data to a delimited file.
• tFileOutput Excel: The data is written to Excel file with the help of tFileOutput component.
• tMySqlOutput: This component writes the transformed data to Mysql database.

5. Logs & Errors Components

The component family of Logs & Errors allows you to log your job execution information. These modules, with the exception of tDie, do not play a functional role in the task-specific processing of your job; however, they play an important part in monitoring your jobs and help ensure smooth running.

• tlogRow: When a user runs the Job from within Talend Studio, the tLogRow feature allows the user to write row data to the Job log file, or console window.
• tAssert/tAssetCatcher: unblocked trigger messages can be caught or send using this pair of tAssert/tAssetCatcher components.
• tChronometerStart/tChronometerStop: This pair of components is used to obtain the run time of a job. The run time is recorded and displayed by tChronometerStop component.
• tDie: In case tAssert/tAssertCather fails to catch unblocked trigger message, tDie components send a signal to tLogCatcher and terminate the running job.
• tFlowMeter/tFlowMeterCather: Data flow metrics of the job can be recorded with the help of flowmeter/tFlowMeterCatcher pair.
• tLogCatcher: This component is used to catch and record the messages sent from tDie and tWarn.
• tLogRow: The result of the data can be displayed on the console with the help of this component.
• tStatCatcher: Statistics generated from a job can be recorded by using the tStatCatcher component.
• tWarn: This component is very similar to tDie and communicates with tLogCatcher in the case of the non-blocking message.

6. Miscellaneous Components

Components that don’t fall in any other category comes under Miscellaneous family.

• tContextDump: This component is used for debugging or providing a record of context variables during the job execution.
• tMemorizeRows: This component enables you to store data arrays that flow through your job. You should specify the number of rows to memorize. If you need to go back to previous rows within your data flow, this feature is helpful. You also choose the individual columns to memorize as well as specifying the number of rows to be memorized.

7. Internet

This family of components lets the user perform internet-related operations during the job.

• tSendEmail: This component allows the Email to be sent directly from the job with the help of the simple mail transfer protocol.
• tHttpRequest: This component of the internet family is used to make GET and POST request to the provided URL.

Conclusion

In this article, we have learned about multiple categories in which Talend components are categorized into. Talend provides users with nearly a thousand components in order to complete several tasks ranging from cloud migration to big data solutions. Talend components eliminate the time consumed in manually coding and provide non-developers the required tools to carry out data analysis.

This has been a guide to Talend Components. Here we discuss the introduction and different categories of talend components. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –

1. Talend Tools
2. Talend Data Integration
3. Talend Open Studio
4. What is MuleSoft?