Question

Feature Writer in FME 2020 vs 2021

  • 9 August 2022
  • 8 replies
  • 17 views
R

I have a workspace on FME Desktop that has a few feature writers. This workspace was built using FME 2020 but we recently upgraded to FME 2021. There weren't any issues running it until I saved the workspace with FME 2021 with no back up.

 

Basically, it seems that the 'User Attributes' tab disappears in FME 2021's FeatureWriter. For context, the tab is there until I specify that I want to do a filecopy. I've tried many workarounds but it seems like I can't connect the 'source dataset' to the writer no matter what I do, because the previous 'user attributes' that I've built into the workspace no longer exist. My feature reader is also reading a bunch of different attributes, and I need all of these attributes after the FeatureWriters, so using a file copy writer is not a good solution.

 

Has anyone encountered this problem before, and how do you get the FeatureWriter to work in this case? I keep getting the warning- Skipped 2864 features that were missing source datasets. How exactly do you specify source datasets if the user attribute tab doesn't exist?

8 replies

M
Badge +2

@reginechua1​ can you include an image of your FeatureWriter parameters to illustrate the issue? You should always have the User Attributes tab on the FeatureWriter

R

@Mark Stoakes​ Yes, here is my FeatureWriter. As you can see, there is no 'user attribute' tab.

 

Screenshot (71)

ebygomm
Rank
Userlevel 1
Badge +21

@Mark Stoakes​ Yes, here is my FeatureWriter. As you can see, there is no 'user attribute' tab.

 

Screenshot (71)

A couple of the pre-set user attributes now appear under the format tab.

This is the setup that works for me. Set filecopy_dest_dataset under dataset and expose filecopy_source_dataset and filecopy_dest_filename.

Other user attributes still appear if you choose to pass features through the writer

image 

 

M
Badge +2

@Mark Stoakes​ Yes, here is my FeatureWriter. As you can see, there is no 'user attribute' tab.

 

Screenshot (71)

@reginechua1​ For the FileCopy writer that is correct. There are no User Attributes on the FileCopy writer because it doesn't actually write anything - it just moves files around

R

@Mark Stoakes​ I understand that but in FME 2020, there was a User Attributes Tab for the FeatureWriter when you indicated 'FileCopy'. The problem is that I have an existing workspace that has parameters in the User Attributes Tab (see the screenshot below) and that disappears in FME 2021 so it messes up with the whole workspace.

Screenshot (74)@ebygomm​ thank you, that is very helpful. Thing is, I have tried to expose filecopy_source_dataset and filecopy_dest_filename but it keeps unticking itself for me. What transformer do you have before the featurewriter?

ebygomm
Rank
Userlevel 1
Badge +21

@Mark Stoakes​ I understand that but in FME 2020, there was a User Attributes Tab for the FeatureWriter when you indicated 'FileCopy'. The problem is that I have an existing workspace that has parameters in the User Attributes Tab (see the screenshot below) and that disappears in FME 2021 so it messes up with the whole workspace.

Screenshot (74)@ebygomm​ thank you, that is very helpful. Thing is, I have tried to expose filecopy_source_dataset and filecopy_dest_filename but it keeps unticking itself for me. What transformer do you have before the featurewriter?

Just an attribute creator which creates filecopy_source_dataset etc.

tim_wood
Rank
Badge +7

@reginechua1​ I have the same problem with FME 2021. The point is not that FileCopy doesn't write any attributes. The point is that you could set the attribute values in the User Attributes tab as you demonstrate in your screenshot.

 

Sure I can add an AttributeCreator. But that creates a risk of mis-typing the attribute names. OK you can go back and correct that, but it's still an irritation.

 

The change has also created an inconsistency in that you specify source dataset and destination filename as attributes prior to the FeatureWriter, but the destination folder is specified within the FeatureWriter. Also, it works really badly. I tried putting the full path in the Dataset parameter, but it then creates a subfolder called "filecopy" under that and writes the files there. I then realised you can specify a folder in the Subfolder Name parameter of the Parameters tab. So I tried putting the path there, but that doesn't work either. It seemed that having already created a full path in an attribute, I then had to go back and split it. I've found and tried setting the parameter for Feature Type Names as Subfolders to No, but it's still not working. Very annoyed at an unnecessary change which has caused me so much problems.

 

Update: I think I've now got it working, but it shows what sort of disruption such changes can cause. Was there really some huge problem with users trying to write extra attributes there, or some major processing efficiency gain that meant Safe had to take it out?

tim_wood
Rank
Badge +7

@reginechua1​ I have the same problem with FME 2021. The point is not that FileCopy doesn't write any attributes. The point is that you could set the attribute values in the User Attributes tab as you demonstrate in your screenshot.

 

Sure I can add an AttributeCreator. But that creates a risk of mis-typing the attribute names. OK you can go back and correct that, but it's still an irritation.

 

The change has also created an inconsistency in that you specify source dataset and destination filename as attributes prior to the FeatureWriter, but the destination folder is specified within the FeatureWriter. Also, it works really badly. I tried putting the full path in the Dataset parameter, but it then creates a subfolder called "filecopy" under that and writes the files there. I then realised you can specify a folder in the Subfolder Name parameter of the Parameters tab. So I tried putting the path there, but that doesn't work either. It seemed that having already created a full path in an attribute, I then had to go back and split it. I've found and tried setting the parameter for Feature Type Names as Subfolders to No, but it's still not working. Very annoyed at an unnecessary change which has caused me so much problems.

 

Update: I think I've now got it working, but it shows what sort of disruption such changes can cause. Was there really some huge problem with users trying to write extra attributes there, or some major processing efficiency gain that meant Safe had to take it out?

Another consequence of this change may be that additional attributes exposed via the Summary port have no values. This also causes problems for things that happen after the FeatureWriter.

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