There is a new project to acquire a new data feed from a vendor and add it to a database to enhance coverage for a neglected market. The data feed consists of a daily set of 6 files, one primary file with one row per main object, 4 other files which relate to the main file, and a secondary object file which is loosely related to the first. The data is in plain text.

What sort of information would you expect to see in the feed specification from the vendor? List at least eight. Give the reason why each piece of information is valuable to you in planning the implementation, and what the consequence of not having it is. What types of things would you do to protect yourself from errors in the vendor data? How would you verify the vendor feed specification once you started receiving data? What ramifications are there if the data vendor had an XML offering instead of the plain text file? In what conditions would you prefer XML delivery?