Binding multiline with index

[Zmudzin,Tomasz,VEVEY,GL-IS/IT]

Hey, I know the pain... And I know I don't need to convince you about the
advantages and disadvantages of the strong enforcement of rules... I'm
afraid when looking at the detail you'll notice that the "grammar" used by
SAP WF is OO-typish only on the surface, so the kind of operation requested
by you is simply not supported.
 
It is my personal preference to stick to strong enforcement though. Putting
it into more humorous way -- did you know what's the difference between
theory and practice? In theory there's no difference... :-)
 
Kind regards,
Tomasz
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Pokraka [mailto:workflow at quirky.me.uk]
Sent: Wednesday,26. February 2003 10:58
To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re: Binding multiline with index
 
 
Hi Tomasz,
Thanks, what you explained about the list vs. table makes a lot of
sense and does clarify things somewhat.
 
My 'development principles' remark was more related to the idea of
having two accesses to the same piece of info - once as a table (OK: a
set!), and again as a single item.
 
To explain - I've often run into business cases where item-level data is
used at header level - e.g. 'an order will always be for one plant' -
thus I want to pull the plant out of _any_ item on the order. A
SELECT SINGLE will do the job (also with no guarantee which one),
but OBJECT.ITEM[1].PLANT is just more 'object oriented' (if that makes
sense).
I suppose that Workflow has some really good design features at the
expense of a few 'oddities'
 
Thanks for the inputs,
Cheers
Mike
 
On Wed, Feb 26, 2003 at 08:20:11AM +0100, Zmudzin,Tomasz,VEVEY,GL-IS/IT
wrote:
> Michael,
>
> apart from some coding scenarios the only way such binding can be achieved
> is in the dynamic parallel processing that you've mentioned.
>
> I have to disagree though with your remarks on logic and development
> principles. As far as I know there's no commitment from SAP to provide or
> keep the sequencing of items in the multiline container elements. Because
of
> this multiline container elements are more of a "Set" (unordered) than an
> "List" (ordered), so position is NOT significant. Because of this the
> requests to:
> - get the 1st item
> - get the n-th item
> - set the n-th item
> - delete the n-th item
> - insert a new item between positions (x) and (x+1)
> are simply not supported. Please note ALL of them would be justified if
the
> sequence of items were kept.
>
> Cheers,
> Tomasz
>
> P.S. I know the sequence is usually kept now, but don't rely on it. In 4.7
> you'll be able to use "Programmed binding", but this will also require
some
> development effort on your side -- and again, don't use it.
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Michael Pokraka [mailto:workflow at quirky.me.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday,25. February 2003 18:30
> To: SAP-WUG at MITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Binding multiline with index
>
>
> Hi all,
> How can one bind one item of a multiline container element to
> a single container element? I know the facility is there because that's
> used in dynamic parallel processing...   4.6c system here.
>
> I'm sure I've seen this done, or maybe I've even done it on a 6.10
> system, can't say for sure, but it's rather annoying at the moment.
> Tried various combos of &OBJECT.ITEM[1]& &OBJECT.ITEM(1)& ...ITEM&[1]
> nothing yet. Docs no good, nothing found in book...
>
> Basically I am sometimes only interested in the first item of a
> multiline container which gets fully used a few steps later. Creating
> seperate OBJECT.FIRSTITEM and OBJECT.ITEMLIST virtual attributes is just
> not nice. It's redundant, and contrary to logic and development
> principles (though I'll bite the bullet if I have to).
>
> TIA for any possible feedback
> Cheers
> Mike