TRANSFORMER

Calculation

The Calculation process can be used to transform numbers into strings, to select parts of strings, replace strings, perform simple calculations, etc.

Creating a Calculation process

To create a Calculation process, right click in the Transformer design panel, choose Process -> Calculation. Connect it to the previous process as described in Processes.

Properties

General

Name - the name "Calculation" is generated automatically but it may be changed
Description - an optional text describing the process

Audit

Modified by - the name of the last user to make changes to the object.
Last modified - the date and time when the object was last changed.
Created by - the name of the user who created the object.
Created - the date and time when the object was created.

Custom

Result field - choose the field that is to contain the result, or specify a new one, in the Result Field drop-down list at the top
Function - create your function either directly in the field or use the calculator at the bottom. In addition to ordinary arithmetic operations, as well as AND and OR, you can perform the following:
- NUM - converts a field to a numeric value
- STR - converts a numeric field to a string
- TRIM - removes leading and trailing white space
- REPLACE - replaces a substring in a string
- SUBSTRING - gets a substring from a string
- ABS - gets the absolute value of a number
- LEN - returns the length of a string
- ROUND - rounds a number to the nearest integer
- FIND - returns the index of the substring
- NOP - finds the number of periods
- DATETONUMBER - converts a date field to a number
- TAG - does comparisons and calculations against dynamic Reporter token tags

Hold the mouse pointer over a Calculation process in the Transformer design panel to see the function it contains.

Rows that do not contain data in columns used in a Calculation process will be teated as Dropouts. They can be found in the Dropouts tab in Preview.

You can use a Calculation process to create a new column with Boolean values (TRUE and FALSE), based on other values in the source. Add a Calculation process and with a new Result field. If, for example, all rows where Number is less than 4 should be given the value TRUE, enter ${Number} < 4.0 in the Function field. Or if all rows where Department is Sales should be TRUE, enter ${Department}="Sales" in the Function field.