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I just learned that you can copy & paste Conditional Values from one transformer to another without having to open the "Parameter Condition Definition" windows each time.

My question is: When pasting a Conditional Value, you have to select "Paste Conditional", if you select "Paste" it will paste a text equation that fails. I assume this behavior is a bug, can someone confirm this? This is better described in the second observation noted below.

The screenshots below show how this works from AttributeCreator to AttributeManager. Observations I had which might be helpful to others are:

  1. When copying/pasting you need to select the text first (e.g. "3 Possible Values", not simply the Cell. (Right clicking the cell gives you options to Cut/Copy/Paste/Duplicate the row.)
  2. When pasting I noticed that you have to select "Paste Conditional", if you select "Paste" it will paste a text equation and refresh to appear like all is well (with the little table icon and everything) but if you open the "Parameter Condition Definition" window there are no values.

 

If my second observation is not a bug, then (in my opinion) when there's lots of conditional variables it would be useful to copy/paste a conditional equation as text and have it work.

When I first discovered that it pasted the equation as text the first thing I did was to pop over to Excel and break the text down because it would be great to "batch" concatenate the equation in Excel and just paste it in to the Attribute Value, I know that would save me time in certain cases.

Thank you for your insights!

 

@joshuadamron Thanks for pointing out this discrepancy.

Copy/Paste Conditional was added in 2018.1. This allows you to copy only the conditional statement rather than the entire row. This in turn allows you to copy a conditional from AttributeCreator to AttributeManager, where the number of columns in the row do not match.

'Copy' probably should be disabled in this context, as copying the condition 'name' ("3 Possible Values") doesn't add any value, and can be missleading because if you don't notice that the condition 'grid' icon is missing you end up with a meaningless Attribute Value.

@joshuadamron   Thanks for pointing out this discrepancy. 

Copy/Paste Conditional was added in 2018.1.  This allows you to copy only the conditional statement rather than the entire row.  This in turn allows you to copy a conditional from AttributeCreator to AttributeManager, where the number of columns in the row do not match. 

 'Copy' probably should be disabled in this context, as copying the condition 'name' ("3 Possible Values") doesn't add any value, and can be missleading because if you don't notice that the condition 'grid' icon is missing you end up with a meaningless Attribute Value. 

@markatsafe Thank you for the feedback.

Regarding the first part of your response, is it likely that a future version of FME will enable the two columns from an AttributeCreator to be pasted in to the two right most columns of Attribute manager?  Do you know if there's an existing Idea for this? (searched but did not find one)

Regarding the second part or your response, I think that I could have been more clear in my post where I referenced "it pasted the equation as text".  

I didn't use 'Copy' and I didn't paste "3 Possible Values", though I have experienced the behavior you are referencing.  I think the 'Copy' function is useful when there are other values (not using Conditionals).

The behavior I was referencing in my post was when I used 'Copy Conditional' and the text/expression that was pasted was this:

FME_CONDITIONAL:DEFAULT_VALUE'_FME_NO_OP_'BOOL_OP;OR;COMPOSITE_TEST;<Unused>;TEST <at>Value<openparen>DirtLotStatus<closeparen> = Clean<space>by<space>Opted<space>Out;TEST <at>Value<openparen>DirtLotStatus<closeparen> = Clean<space>by<space>Opted<space><space>In'Debris<space>Cleanup<space>Complete'BOOL_OP;OR;COMPOSITE_TEST;<Unused>;TEST <at>Value<openparen>DirtLotStatus<closeparen> = Opted<space>Out<space>To<space>Clean<space>Lot'Debris<space>Cleanup<space>Not<space>Complete'FME_NUM_CONDITIONS3

When FME pastes the above into the attribute value it resolves as the condition 'name' ("3 Possible Values") with the conditional icon.  However, when I open up the 'Parameter Condition Definition' window no conditions or values appear, all of the fields are empty.

Thank you again for looking into this. 

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