# Single Message Transformations - The Swiss Army Knife of Kafka Connect

DevFeed: [Single Message Transformations - The Swiss Army Knife of Kafka Connect](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/single-message-transformations-the-swiss-army-knife-of-kafka-connect-18869.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.morling.dev/blog/single-message-transforms-swiss-army-knife-of-kafka-connect/>)

Published: 2020-05-14T13:30:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Gunnar Morling](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/gunnar-morling.md>)

Topics: [Kafka](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/kafka.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>)

Tags: [connectors](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/connectors.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [debezium](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/debezium.md>), [filter](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/filter.md>), [format](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/format.md>), [kafka](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/kafka.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [routing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/routing.md>)

## AI overview

This tutorial explains how Kafka Connect single message transformations (SMTs) modify Kafka records in source and sink connector pipelines. It covers use cases including format conversion, timestamp handling, value masking, filtering, routing, and other transformations, with examples informed by Debezium change data capture.

## Source excerpt

Table of Contents Format Conversions Ensuring Backwards Compatibility Filtering and Routing Tombstone Handling Externalizing Large Payloads Limitations Learning More Do you remember Angus "Mac" MacGyver? The always creative protagonist of the popular 80ies/90ies TV show, who could solve about any problem with nothing more than a Swiss Army knife, duct tape, shoe strings and a paper clip? The single message transformations (SMTs) of Kafka Connect are almost as versatile as MacGyver's Swiss Army knife: How to change the timezone or format of date/time message fields? How to change the topic a specific message gets sent to? How to filter out specific records? SMTs can be the answer to these and many other questions that come up in the context of Kafka Connect. Applied to source or sink connectors, SMTs allow to modify Kafka records before they are sent to Kafka, or after they are consumed from a topic, respectively.