Patent ID: 7599944

Claim:
A method implemented at least in part by a computing device for representing a plurality of electronic data interchange (EDI) schemas to a user, each of the plurality of EDI schemas having data associated therewith, said method comprising: identifying a unitary structure representing the plurality of EDI schemas referenced by EDI transactions by decoding the data in the plurality of EDI schemas, wherein the unitary structure is included in the EDI transactions and is embedded inside functional groups and envelope segments of each EDI transaction, said unitary structure including a first data field including root data associated with a root element of each of the plurality of EDI schemas, and a second data field including data representing data blocks of each of the plurality of EDI schemas, said data in the second data field being defined as a function of the root data in the first data field; determining properties to be included in the unitary structure, said properties defining characteristics of the plurality of the EDI schemas and are included in said second data field; defining a unitary meta-schema for the user as a function of the defined characteristics and the unitary structure, said defined unitary meta-schema corresponding to the plurality of EDI schemas; receiving an input from the user for selecting one of the determined properties in the defined unitary meta-schema; in response to the received input, identifying a specific EDI schema having the one of the selected determined properties associated therewith from the defined unitary meta-schema; in response to the identified specific EDI schema, providing the defined characteristics in the determined properties in the defined unitary meta-schema so that the user is able to modify the characteristics of the specific EDI schemas without knowing specifics of the specific EDI schema; and providing the modified characteristics in the specific EDI schema to the user.