Attribute Data Type Preservation in FME 2020

Hello FME users,

I just wanted to share some information about an update to data types in FME2020, which I don't think has been publicized much. The best demonstration is through a video, but first here's a brief description of the update...

In previous versions of FME, attribute data type would not be preserved fully throughout a workspace. For example, a writer could not determine the data type of an attribute added or edited in the workspace.

You could prove this by following these steps:

• Open FME Workbench 2019
• Add a writer and set the feature type attributes to automatic
• Add an AreaCalculator transformer connected to the writer

The result is that _area is added to the writer, as type char(200). The writer was not able to tell that this attribute should be a numeric type. You would often see char(200) fields as a default for unknown types.

In FME 2020 this has changed.

If you repeated the above step in FME 2020, the result would be a real64 field (or the equivalent of that for the format being used).

In short, data types are now better preserved throughout a workspace.

Here's a video demonstration of the improved functionality in FME 2020

Note: If you don't see the video above, it's attached here:

I hope you find this of use. You don't need to change any settings to apply this; you'll just find that FME is doing a better job at handling data types throughout a workspace.