Custom Operator Property/Column Conditions

[jhmckeever]

Hi All,

I'm developing a custom operator in C++ and have the library working fine. My problem comes when defining the operator in DataStage by using the dialog you get when defining a new Stage Type.

I have a problem specifying "conditions" values in the following contexts:

1. When I want certain stage property to be valid (or not) based on certain conditions. I understand the concept of property Hierarchies and Categories, and have these working well. I go to the Properties tab and select the Extended properties of my stage property. The Conditions field is meant to permit me to specify the condition for the property being valid. The documentation is rather scant on the format of syntax of supplying values to the conditions field. As a test, I've tried Property=5, with/without various quotes, with Property surrounded by # characters, etc. etc. Nothing I've tried seems to work.

2. My operator uses a dynamic output schema. I want certain output columns to exist (or not) based on the values of certain properties. This is achieved using Conditions, but again, very little seems to work here. Specifying a property name as a condition for an output columns has the effect that the output column disappears when the property is set to a value, but I can't specify that a column exists when a property has a SPECIFIC value. Again, no other combination of things I've tried appears to work.

Current documentation can be found at Steps 7 and 8 in the following page:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocente ... tages.html

So, my question: DOES ANYONE HAVE EXPERIENCE OF SUCCESS WITH THIS FIELD? Are there any gotchas or am missing something simple?

[PS. The documentation also specifies that you can define Hidden properties and provide defaults values using DS Macros, but in my tests the generated OSH simply gets the DS Macro name, not its value. Any ideas?]

Sorry for the long-winded question.

Thanks alot,
John.

[ArndW]

Did you make any progress on your questions? I'm in the same boat in that I want to implement a condition (I want one of my output links to get an additional column) and have made no progress as the documentation is "lacking" on this subject. I've had success using the conditions in the attribute list, i.e. making an attribute selectable only when another has been set but that the extent of what I've achieved in the GUI.