Introduction

It is easy to underestimate the importance of the scripting language in Data Services, but you should not fall for this pitfall. In simple words, scripting language is a glue that allows you to build smart and reliable ETL and unite all processing units of work (which are dataflow objects) together.

The scripting language in Data Services is mainly used to create custom functions and script objects. Script objects rarely perform data movement and data transformation. They are used to assist the dataflow object (main data migration and transformation processes). They are usually placed before and after them to assist with execution logic and calculate the execution parameter values for the processes that extract, transform, and load the data.

The scripting language in Data Services is armed with powerful functions that allow you to query databases, execute database stored procedures, and perform sophisticated calculations and data validations. It even supports regular expressions matching techniques, and, of course, it allows you to build your own custom functions. These functions can be used not just in the scripts but also in the mapping of Query transforms inside dataflows.

Without further delay, let's get to learning scripting language.