Using Global variables (Multiple members) in Hyperblock.

unknown

I have setup to fix one member in Global variable and select its children in a Hyperblock. 

Is it possible to use Multiple members in Global variables and select all their children in a Hyperblock?

John Robson

Yes

Use the Lookup object in App Studio and enable multi selection.

Write the selected elements to a report variable say rv_Region on the (required) action for your lookup object.

Also in the parameters section of the Edit Action Dialog add a second report Variable - say rv_RegionChildren and add a line like this as the formula:

=IF(ISMULTISELECT(Actions.Result.Text),RUNPROCESS("MultiSelectChildren",-1,Actions.Result.Text),Actions.Result.Text& ".Children")

The process to be called by RUNPROCESS would be:

#define EngineVersion 5.0
#define RuntimeVersion 5.0

string MultiSelectChildren(string MultiSelectVariable)
@Description: "John Robson: Take the value of a MultiSelect Variable and appends .children to all the included elements.";
@Category: "Utilities";
@Parameter[MultiSelectVariable]: "The input MultiSelect Variable.";

@Returns: "Modifed MultiSelectVariable with .Children appended";
{
    //Version 1.00 10-Nov-23

    //Note the the parent itself is not included in the returned variable
    string MSVariableChildren = StringReplace(MultiSelectVariable,"</MemberUName>",".Children</MemberUName>", false);
    return MSVariableChildren;
}

In your report select the 2nd variable as an Element in your hyperblock if you want just the children or both variables if you also want parents.

So comments:

- this is a very quick and dirty process, so no error checking

- if the user picks a base element then by definition it has no children

- if the user selects a single parent then the process isn't called, rather .children is appended to the unique name of the element they select

- this all works because of the simple xml generated by the lookup object etc.etc.

- you could probably do the replace in App Studio but as the process takes less than 500 ms with 3 elements selected I think it's ok

- there are undoubtedly better ways of doing this - this was the first though that came into my head.and it's fairly simple.