The Read metadata from Copybook step reads a binary fixed-length copybook definition file and outputs the file and column descriptor information as fields to PDI rows. You can then use these rows with the ETL Metadata Injection step to populate the Copybook Input step. Also, you can use this step to create a metadata template for multiple data files or to create a data model for a relational database. See Copybook steps in PDI for more information.
This step is required to use metadata injection with the Copybook Input step.