The getValue placeholder

The getValue placeholder reads a value from the selected record in a web page. This can be a column value of the selected record, or the current value of a variable in a variable set.

This placeholder refers to the underlying data source item of a data source:

${getValue( data-source, data-source-item ) }

You can use the getValue placeholder with any kind of TableDataSource or VariableSetDataSource object. When you do, the data-source-item parameter can be a column name or a variable name of the corresponding data source.

Examples

To obtain a column value from the selected record of a data source, you can set, for example:

${getValue( SCHEDTOUR, DESTINATION) }

You can INVOKE a batch job with a parameter that is shown in the current web page:

INVOKE BatchRunner.RunJob
WITH
SELECT 'MyJob' JobName, 'job-parameter='|| ${getValue( SCHEDTOUR, DESTINATION )} JobParameter

Comparisons with NULL or empty strings

In comparisons between NULL and ${getValue( )}, be sure to use the operators IS NULL (and IS NOT NULL for the opposite case):

${getValue( PERSON, FAMILY_NAME )} IS NULL

Do NOT compare ${getValue( )} with the empty string:

${getValue( PERSON, FAMILY_NAME )} = ''

In JavaScript, by contrast, you must write:

getValue( "PERSON", "FAMILY_NAME" ) == ""

Added single quotes

When using the getValue placeholder in a SQL statement, by default single quotation marks (' ') are added automatically around the retrieved value, according to the type of the DataSource item: A numeric type gets a single quote, and other types do not.

You can change this default behavior by adding a third, optional argument (True or False) to the placeholder to enforce or skip the addition of single quotes:

${getValue( data-source, data-source-item, { True | False } ) }