How can I use Labels if/nvl on a target property

[Manj75]

I have a Source and Target 'applicant component' connected with an 'association' relation.  Target application component as a property Status = live

I want to display on the Source as a label the Target's status property if it exists.

I can do on the Source element in the Label and will display the Targets property Status value:

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$association:target{property:Status}

Now, I want to build this into a conditional statement so it shows the property value if present, otherwise show the text "Empty", however this does not work instead showing the expression as text in the Source element:

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${if:<place the above here>:<place the above here>:Empty}

i.e.
${if:$association:target{property:Status}:$association:target{property:Status}:Empty}

What is observed is the Label expression is displayed with the property value shown i.e.

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The Source element shows the text:

${if:Live:Live:Empty}

Can someone please let me know what I am doing wrong - thank you

[Phil Beauvoir]

Hi, please try this:

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${nvl:$association:target{property:Status}:Empty}
That translates to "If there is a property with name "Status" in the first target of the association relationship, display the property's value, else display "Empty"

[Manj75]

Hi Phil,

Yes, I figured out the problem...

The issue is that the value of the Status property for one of the Target element has the ':' char so when this is evaluated it forms part of the label expression causing a syntax error resulting in the whole expression seen as text which it displays.

When I changed to the property value to exclude ':' character it worked as expected.

Is there a way to correct the expression so it will work for values that include ':'?

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Property: Status = 'Legacy: Replace'

${nvl:$association:target{property:Status}:Empty}

Results in the display of:

${nvl:Legacy: Replace:Empty}

Changing the property value to remove the ':', i.e. 'Legacy Replace'

It displays correctly in the element: Legacy Replace


[Phil Beauvoir]

The issue is that the value of the Status property for one of the Target element has the ':' char so when this is evaluated it forms part of the label expression causing a syntax error resulting in the whole expression seen as text which it displays.

When I changed to the property value to exclude ':' character it worked as expected.

Is there a way to correct the expression so it will work for values that include ':'?

Sorry, no. It seems this is a side effect / bug of the algorithm to parse label expressions.

[Manj75]

Ok - I'll replace all usage of the ':'

Thanks for your quick assistance.

[Phil Beauvoir]

Actually, you can escape the ":" with a backslash like this - "\:". However, this means changing the property value which means that backslash will show wherever you view the property value.