Hi Jason,
Ah yes, we are "cracking down" (or fixing) most of the places where
you can type text in to remove issues with "odd" characters like
quotes, ampersands, dollar signs, parentheses, etc.
And you are right that AttributeCreator was high on the list. That one
used to cause lots of users problems with special characters.
The goal in the end is that you should be able to put any string into
places where any string is likely to be valid or needed, and things
work. And that means the old back doors will be shut.
But we have added an "FMEFunctionCaller" transformer which does let
you get at raw FME power if you want. And for transformers like the
Counter, perhaps we'll take the bold move to document the &attrName
trick for the count name (or make it a pull down even -- in fact, I
just did that, so no need to document the trick any more -- its not
needed). Mark -- you are right, this is just like a group-by on it, and
I used that phrasing in the documentation. We have also added a "scope"
to these counters recently too, so that also works (scope is relevant
if/when a counter is embedded in a custom xformer).
BTW to expose something without using a transformer at all, you can
also just right click on an output port and say "add attribute", and
then leave it red. If the attribute already had a value, that value
won't be touched, and you can use the attribute then further
downstream.
And YES YES YES, using the "upgrade" option on transformers is VERY
DANGEROUS. Really, we don't think people should do that, and we only
put it in because a couple big customers pushed. Probably we still
shouldn't have. In general, you have to be 100% certain you REALLY want
the new behaviour before you upgrade a transformer. If you don't know
why you want to upgrade it, then don't. (The reason one client wants
this option is they want to upgrade polygonbuilder/intersector/etc to
process Arcs, which they used to not do, and that upgrade does not
involve any interface change of any sort.).
Good comments.
Dale
On 9/29/06, Jason Birch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Dale,
>
> This ability to pass by reference seems to be going away in at least
some transformers to reduce unexpected results (users who actually
think that & and @ should be used as text characters; the nerve).
>
> For instance, from my limited at-home ability to fact check, I
believe I was previously using an AttributeCreator (myAttribute =
&myAttribute) to expose attributes that were in the stream because I
used a join in the "SELECT" parameter of a database reader. This is no
longer possible, though I can work around it now that the
AttributeExposer allows type-ins.
>
> Will each transformer where this ability is being removed be
evaluated for implications, etc?
>
> Jason
>
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