Expression Results and Formatting

For detailed guidance on expression please refer to this article: Conditional Expressions

The Encodian population engine provides additional features which allow the result of an expression to be formatted differently.

This article covers the following topics:

Expression Formatting Syntax

String Formatters

Date Formatters

Other Formatters

Expression Formatting Syntax

Expression formatting follows this simple convention:

<<[token]:"format">>

Consider this JSON document:

{
"companyName": "Encodian",
"formedOn": "17/06/2008"
}

Consider this standard expression format:

<<[formedOn]>>

Which generates the following output:

mceclip0.png

The expression result can be formatted by adding the format configuration, see below:

Formed: <<[formedOn]:"yyyy.MM.dd">>

Which generates the following output:

mceclip1.png

String Formats

The following string formats are supported by the population engine:

lower: Converts a string to lower case, for example: "this is a string"

Example JSON:

{
  "product": "Encodian for Microsoft Power Automate"
}

Token Format Configuration

mceclip1.png

<<[product]:lower>>

Output:

mceclip0.png

upper: Converts a string to upper case, for example: "THIS IS A STRING"

Example JSON:

{
  "product": "Encodian for Microsoft Power Automate"
}

Token Format Configuration

mceclip2.png

<<[product]:upper>>

Output:

mceclip3.png

caps: Capitalizes the first letter of every word in a string, for example: "This Is A String"

Example JSON:

{
  "product": "encodian for microsoft power automate"
}

Token Format Configuration

mceclip4.png

<<[product]:caps>>

Output:

mceclip5.png

firstCap: Capitalizes the first letter of the first word in a string, for example: "This is a string"

Example JSON:

{
  "product": "encodian for microsoft power automate"
}

Token Format Configuration

mceclip6.png

<<[product]:firstCap>>

Output:

mceclip7.png

Date Formats

By default, the population engine tries to detect and parse DateTime values automatically using the following formats listed in order:

  • The ISO-8601 format (for values like “2015-03-02T13:56:04Z”)
  • The Microsoft® JSON date-time format (for values like “/Date(1224043200000)/")
  • All date-time formats supported for the current culture (Specific to processing region)
  • All date-time formats supported for the English USA culture
  • All date-time formats supported for the English New Zealand culture

The population engine supports the standard .NET date and time format strings. We've included a few examples below for reference:

Example #1

Example JSON:

{
"formedOn": "2008-08-10T13:49:51.141Z"
}

Token Format Configuration

mceclip15.png

<<[formedOn]:"dd MMM yy H:mm:ss">>

Output:

mceclip16.png

Example #2

Example JSON:

{
"formedOn": "2008-08-10T13:49:51.141Z"
}

Token Format Configuration

mceclip13.png

<<[formedOn]:"dd-MM-yyyy">>

Output:

mceclip14.png

Override Date Formatting

To override the default DateTime parsing configuration; please either set the 'Date Time Format' advanced property to:

  • A specific format, for example: DD/MM/YYYY
  • Specific formats using the '~' character, for example: MMMM dd, yyyy~DD/MM/YYYY
  • The value 'disable' to prevent JSON values from being parsed as a DateTime

Other Formats

The population engine also supports the following formats for numbers, the following examples all utilise this example JSON data:

{
"example": 1
}

alphabetic: Formats a number as an upper-case letter (A, B, C, …)

Token Format Configuration

mceclip0.png

<<[example]:alphabetic>>

Output:

mceclip1.png

roman: Formats a number as an upper-case Roman numeral (I, II, III, …)

Token Format Configuration

mceclip2.png

<<[example]:roman>>

Output:

mceclip3.png

ordinal: Appends an ordinal suffix to a number (1st, 2nd, 3rd, …)

Token Format Configuration

mceclip4.png

<<[example]:ordinal>>

Output:

mceclip5.png

ordinalText: Converts a number to its ordinal text representation (First, Second, Third, …)

Token Format Configuration

mceclip6.png

<<[example]:ordinalText>>

Output:

mceclip7.png

cardinal: Converts a number to its text representation (One, Two, Three, …)

Token Format Configuration

mceclip8.png

<<[example]:cardinal>>

Output:

mceclip9.png

hex: Formats a number as hexadecimal (8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10, 11, …)

Token Format Configuration

mceclip10.png

<<[example]:hex>>

Output:

mceclip11.png

arabicDash: Encloses a number with dashes (- 1 -, - 2 -, - 3 -, etc.)

Token Format Configuration

mceclip12.png

<<[example]:arabicDash>>

Output:

mceclip13.png

 

 

 

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