The documentation on the Fixed Width Formatter being Ultra compatible is incorrect and we have filed a defect on it. I just tested an Ultra task with the Fixed Width Formatter and received an “incompatible” error.
Suggested approach is still to:
- Use a child pipeline to query the database and aggregate
or
- Have the database return the JSON Array
One thing to keep in mind with Ultra - the latency to start a child pipeline is extremely low since the pipeline metadata is cached locally so there is no communication to the control plane to start the process. It is pretty close to having the snaps contained within the main pipeline. Have you tried this approach and tested timing?
I did a quick sample that consumes the request and starts a child that generates several documents and uses a Gate to accumulate them to an array and passes the document back to the parent for return to the client. Total execution is under half a second based on “curl” stats.
I compared this with a pipeline that simply generates an array using a JSON Generator (no child) and total execution time is over half a second… actually longer than with the child pipeline!
I’ll continue to monitor this post. Please keep me updated on your solution!