Parameters

Parameters are similar to constants/macros you can define once and use on various places in graph configuration.

The main benefits of parameters are centralization (to change values later in one place) and configuration.

The values of the graph parameters are always converted to string. (For example, if the value is represented by a CTL code returning a non-string result, the result will be converted to string.)

Every value, number, path, filename, attribute, etc. can be set or changed with the help of parameters except for the import statement in the CTL code.

Warning!

Parameters cannot be used in import statement in CTL code.

Creating Parameters

Graph parameters can be created using the Graph Parameter Editor or the Export As Graph Parameter button in the Edit component dialog box.

Parameter Name

The names of parameters may contain uppercase and lowercase letters (A-Z,a-z), digits (0-9) and the underscore character (_). Additionally, the name must not start with a digit.

Example 11. Parameter Name

• PARAMETER1 - valid parameter name

• My_Cool_Parameter_002 - valid parameter name

• 127001 - invalid parameter name, begins with digit

• My parameter - invalid parameter name, contains blank character

• My-Great-Parameter - invalid parameter name, contains hyphen

• Bücher - invalid parameter name, contains diacritics

Priorities of Parameters

Graph parameters have a lower priority than those specified in the Main tab or in the Parameters tab of Run Configurations…. In other words, both internal and external parameters can be overwritten by those specified in Run Configurations…​. However, both external and internal parameters have a higher priority than all environment variables and can overwrite them.

Each parameter can be created as:

• Internal: See Internal Parameters. Internal parameters can be Externalized: See Externalizing Internal Parameters.
• External (shared): See External (Shared) Parameters. External parameters can be Internalized: See Internalizing External (Shared) Parameters.

The value of parameters can be:

• Static - parameter contains a fixed string value

• Dynamic - parameter value is a CTL expression to be evaluated; see Parameters with CTL2 Expressions (Dynamic Parameters)

Graph parameter editor is described in Graph Parameter Editor.

List of Parameters

The list of parameters related to the project structure can be found in Standard Structure of All Data Shaper Projects.

There are also some parameters that can be used in graphs.