I was using WTX 8.3 to build a type tree off a COBOL copybook. When I then attempted to run a map based on the tree I got the error “One or More Inputs was Invalid”.

My Input data was in EBCDIC format and RFHUtil was my saviour. It was able to display the copybook and the data side-by-side so I could see what values should be where. (Sidenote: Good EBCDIC editor is VEDIT ).

I turned on Map Tracing via the not-well-defined ‘Map Settings’ and InputContentTrace and saw that my data wasn’t matching up with the items in the input. It was trying to put data contained in byte 1000 into an object defined at byte 1050.

Then I noticed that the number of bytes that my imported data in WTX was ‘off’ was the exact same number of bytes as a group.

I opened the Generated type tree and sure enough, a group was missing. Once I added it back as a Child Component in the Root ‘Record’ group (along with a few other missing groups) my input successfully validated.

Now, I don’t know a ton about the structure of cobol copybook or what could have caused it, but if you are in WTX and don’t see your input data lining up properly it’s probably because your WTX Root Object is missing them.