Datasets and Parameters › Process Parameters › Operator Properties › Execution Settings › Target Settings › Operator Dataset Variables

Operator Dataset Variables

The operator dataset contains variables that are associated with an operator. You can view, create, edit, or delete variables and their associated values at design time. The variables are available to the operator with which they are associated or any other operator in your process as soon as the process starts. After the operator runs, it automatically creates other variables in the operator dataset. Some variables are standard and define information such as the start time, stop time, and result. Other variables are information specific to each operator.

You can use the dot notation or the bracket notation with expressions to access an operator dataset variable from any operator in a process:

Process_name.Operator_name.field_name

Process_name[OpName_expression].field_name

Process_name[OpName_expression][field_name_expression]

Note: You can also use IconName in place of OpName.

The expressions return the name of the operator or variable, as indicated. The following syntax returns an element in an indexed field, where n is the element number:

field_name[n]

The pre-execution and post-execution code for an operator can use the OpName keyword to access the name of the current operator. To specify an operator dataset variable in the pre-execution or post-execution code of that same operator, use the following syntax:

Process[OpName].field_name

For example, use the following post-execution code statements:

• Assign the operator name and the value of the associated Result variable to the process dataset variables iName and iResult
• Create an operator dataset variable named World:

  Process.iName = OpName
  Process.iResult = Process[OpName].Result
  Process[OpName].World = "Hello world!";
  

If you know the operator name at design time, you can use the literal operator name to reference the dataset variables in an expression.

Occasionally, however, you do not know the operator name at design time. For example:

• When you are editing pre-execution or post-execution actions for a custom operator object.
• When you must access the operator dataset variables in one of several operators, but you do not know which operator ran until run time.

You can use pre-execution or post-execution code in each operator to save its name to a variable, as with the iName variable in the previous example. The variable could be a process dataset variable or it could be an operator dataset variable that belongs to the operator that requires the name. For example, in the following illustration, the process runs either OperatorA or OperatorB before it reaches OperatorC. OperatorC can then use the operation name that OperatorA or OperatorB saved to a process variable to access dataset variables.

Using variables instead of fixed names makes code modular and interchangeable among operators in a process.

More information:

Create a Named Dataset Object

Calculated Parameters