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Using Named Parameters in DTU

You can use named parameters to pass in a run-time dynamic value into Data Transfer Utilities (DTU). For example, imagine you want to pull a contact's latest information into your Buscomp. At design-time, you cannot foresee what is the contact's ID. Instead, you use a named parameter, &ContactId, and at run time, you pass in the value &ContactId.

Named parameters are defined implicitly in two ways:

• Business Service Arguments. Pass in the named parameters when DTU is invoked. DTU knows an argument is a named parameter if the argument name is prefixed with an ampersand (&).

  For example:

  var psinputs, psoutputs;
  var myContactId = '0-45TU890';
  psinputs = TheApplication().NewPropertySet();
  psoutputs = TheApplication().NewPropertySet();
  psinputs.SetProperty ("DataMapObj", "My Test DTU Object");
  psinputs.SetProperty ("Operation", "Update");
  psinputs.SetProperty ("&ContactId", myContactId);
  var obs = TheApplication().GetService("FINS Data Transfer Utilities");
  obs.InvokeMethod ("DataTransfer",psinputs, psoutputs);

  &ContactId serves as a named parameter.

  The input value of a named parameter can be a calculation expression. In order to do so, set the value to:

  Expr: "YourExpression"

  which is the syntax of Buscomp field predefault. At run time, the expression is evaluated against the initiator Buscomp. For more information about initiator buscomp, see the argument description in DataTransfer Method.

• Assignment by DTU. At run time, you can transfer into a named parameter if the field type is Parameter. When this happens, if the named parameter is still not defined, it is instantiated.

A named parameter must be implicitly defined first before it can be used. In other words, un-assigned named parameters cannot be used.

Named parameters can be used to define Data Map Component Advanced Options, and Data Map Field Source or Destination that are of type Expression.

All named parameters are output into the DTU service output arguments.

TIP:   Whenever a named parameter is used in DTU, it must be prefixed with &.