Reference Path Syntax

See Also

From called pages, you can refer to DataSources in calling Pages by using a special reference path syntax.

Examples of valid reference paths are:

../DataSource 1                                (Data Source 1 belongs to underlying page on stack)

../../Page 1/DataSource 1                        (Page 1 is embedded in underlying page on stack)

../../../Page 1/Page 2/DataSource 1        (Page 2 is embedded in Page1, Page 1 is as in previous example)

Delimiters are the symbols .. (two period characters) and / (slash). Name strings are <PageName> and <DataSourceName>.

Delimiters are used to traverse the stacking hierarchy. The .. delimiter refers to the immediate underlying page. From an underlying page, the slash ( / ) symbol refers to the immediate level of ccurrent pages. If one or more page names are used, the slash symbol is also used to separate the last page name from the name of the target DataSource.

Name strings are alphanumerical. They are case-sensitive. They may NOT be surrounded by single or double quotes. Name strings appear EXACTLY as they appear in the Web Designer object tree views.

Spaces are allowed both between delimiters and name strings, and inside name strings. Spaces inside a name string (i.e., surrounded by alphanumeric characters) are part of the name. Other spaces (between delimiters, and between a delimiter and a name string) carry no meaning.

This reference syntax is ONLY used in the Synchronization DataSource property of DataSources, in the Synchronization DataSource property of Lookup and Relate objects, and in the getValue and getSearchValue placeholders.

For example, to display in an alert box the value of the column C1 of the current record of data source DS of page P whose position on the stack is one level below the current page:

alert(getValue(‘../DS’, ‘C1’))

To get the value of a different column C2 in DS2 on page E embedded in the page just below the current page:

alert(getValue(‘../E/DS2’, ‘C2’))

Embedded Pages

Embedded pages are available as subfolder within the page they are embedded in. Embedded pages are stacked in as far as path syntax is concerned (../previous), however an embedded page does not need to be navigated to, nor can it be closed. For this to work, the Synchronization DataSource property of the child table must be set to the path to the parent table. This indicates that it is used to refer back to previous information about the parent data set, rather than to tap directly into the database table.