Thanks Dale, I do agree that the goal of making it less easy for a new user to shoot themselves in the foot is paramount. I recall running into similar issues and being a bit annoyed at having to figure out the correct quoting at the time. Just to confirm, what happens when you add a transformer to a workspace with older versions of the same transformer? Is the new one a new version and the old ones remain the old version? How about copying and pasting transformers within the same workspace, are they upgraded on paste? Right-clicking to expose attributes might be useful if you could do it on the source feature type, or if you could add "custom" attributes to the user attributes list after the greyed out options. However, doing this a transformer or more into the stream is dangerous, as it is not immediately obvious that you have done it when you (or someone else) comes back to the workspace. Which brings us back to workspace documentation I guess, but... Jason
________________________________ From: [email protected] on behalf of Dale Lutz Sent: Sun 2006-10-01 3:44 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [fme] Re: Creating intermediate points along a line 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 > Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fme/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fme/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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