Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

[[email protected]]

If a grid has a summary on a field that shows the total at the bottom part of the grid (bottom by default), can that data be accessed?

For example, use the grid total to populate session variables by some xbasic?

Thanks

[[email protected]]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

If a grid has a summary on a field that shows the total at the bottom part of the grid (bottom by default), can that data be accessed?

For example, use the grid total to populate session variables by some xbasic?

Thanks

[ATTACH]12178[/ATTACH]

I'm wondering if any Alpha Employees could look at this as it seems like it would be a good thing to know. It would save re-reading records and a return trip to the server.

Does anyone know?

[[email protected]]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

I'm wondering if any Alpha Employees could look at this as it seems like it would be a good thing to know. It would save re-reading records and a return trip to the server.

Does anyone know?

I'm bumping myself.

I can't see my using an incident to get an answer to this seemingly straightforward easy-to-answer question.

Any Alpha Software Devs out there know the answer and wouldn't mind sharing?

Pretty Please ?

[Steve Workings]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

I just poked around, and don't see a way to grab the value Clint. It's not assigned to any object name either in Xbasic or the resulting html.

Guess what I'd do is run a seperate calculation and put that into the session variable unless someone finds something I don't see.

[[email protected]]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

I just poked around, and don't see a way to grab the value Clint. It's not assigned to any object name either in Xbasic or the resulting html.

Guess what I'd do is run a seperate calculation and put that into the session variable unless someone finds something I don't see.

Hey Steve,

Thanks for responding. I couldn't find anything either. I can certainly do a number of things (xbasic statistics function for example) to get the total.

But the thing is.....it's ....right.....there....so Alpha must have *some* way to hold the value as they calculate the summary feature.

Getting that total that's *right there* at the bottom will save me re-reading a possibly HUGE number of records......what a waste re-reading all those records.....

Assuming the other gurus here aren't holding back. I'll assume no user knows.
But....the Alpha Devs probably *do* know.

I'm starting a poll. Who would *LIKE* to be able to access the summary functions that are built into the grid.

Would it be a time saver/performance saver to not have re-code a re-reading of your data? I think so....

Am I alone?....please don't let me be alone....

[Lenny Forziati]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

As far as I know, these values are not available to you.

You could try parsing your Output.Body.Grid_HTML to extract them if you really don't want to calculate them.

[Steve Workings]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

Clint - here's some code I just tried out that works at least for this example. This, or something very close to this should work for any of your pages.

I used AlphaSports to create a grid of Invoice Items with a total, per your example. Placed the grid on an A5W page, of course, then added this code to the page to obtain and display the session variable and it's value:

<%A5
start = "Total&nbsp;</td><td"
end = "</td>"
less_text = extract_string(x_Grid_Items.Output.Body.Grid_HTML, start, end)
session.ShowTotal = substr(less_text, at(">$", less_text)+1, 15)
?"Session.ShowTotal = " + session.ShowTotal
%>

I'm sure this could be cleaned up and made a bit more efficient, but it's a good start. Hope this helps.

[[email protected]]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

As far as I know, these values are not available to you.

You could try parsing your Output.Body.Grid_HTML to extract them if you really don't want to calculate them.

Thank you for responding. I really don't want to re-do what is already done.

[[email protected]]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

Clint - here's some code I just tried out that works at least for this example. This, or something very close to this should work for any of your pages.

I used AlphaSports to create a grid of Invoice Items with a total, per your example. Placed the grid on an A5W page, of course, then added this code to the page to obtain and display the session variable and it's value:

<%A5
start = "Total&nbsp;</td><td"
end = "</td>"
less_text = extract_string(x_Grid_Items.Output.Body.Grid_HTML, start, end)
session.ShowTotal = substr(less_text, at(">$", less_text)+1, 15)
?"Session.ShowTotal = " + session.ShowTotal
%>

I'm sure this could be cleaned up and made a bit more efficient, but it's a good start. Hope this helps.

Thank you for responding Steve,

I almost cramped my fingers speed-typing (mostly copy and pasting but you get the idea) your example to test it and it ***WORKS***. I salute you .

I can't be the only one that sees an advantage of not re-reading untold thousands of records when the answer was *right there* in the grid.

Now thanks to you, I don't have to. Woot! :D

/waves to Lenny Forziati and other Alpha employees.
Could someone add Steve's code as an example to the help file (and give Steve credit)?

[SteveHanson]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

Mr. Workings, nice solution. What a nice grasp of the connection between the server functions and the page. I'd appreciate help on a very similar problem wherein I calculate a total value and put it into the freeform area above a grid component. I'm dealing with a very small table so processing time isn't an issue as it is here.
One problem that I've run into is that if I reference a variable that is developed in the page <head> section, the grid component piece (I consider the freeform area above the grid to be a 'piece') doesn't see it and so I get a script error. I suppose I'll have to move the logic currently in the <head> area into the piece. I did that but it still does not see the variable.
I suspect that I'm abusing the tools or not using them as intended.
A suggestion would be that if alpha code is placed into a piece of a component (which is what I'm doing) that the logic in the publisher pull out the stuff that is in the component piece <head> section and put it into the page <head> section (Hmmm. I suspect it does this but ONLY when I initially insert it into the page). And the body of the component piece to the body of the page. And the script editor which runs on the component pieces at 'save' time would only have to validate within the context of the piece. The source view for it shows both a head and body section.). I think I'm beginning to see some of the dynamics of the insert process or perhaps where my confusion is.
Any help clarifying this would be greatly appreciated.
I moved all of the logic into the piece and it worked. So, alpha code must be contained within the same <%a5 .. %> brackets within a freeform area.

[Steve Workings]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

In the example I did for Clint, you'll see that I extracted stuff from x_Grid_Items.Output.Body.Grid_HTML. If you look at your .a5w page, you'll see all the output html is calculated before it's displayed on the page. It is, therefore, readily available -- I think maybe you're worrying too much about "what comes first."

The x_Grid_Items.Output.Body.Grid_HTML is just a string of html characters, so all I did below is apply a bit of string-handling with some html tags to get what I wanted.

Your description of what you want is a little vague -- if you need more help, please try to be as precise as possible about what you want.

[SteveHanson]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

In the example I did for Clint, you'll see that I extracted stuff from x_Grid_Items.Output.Body.Grid_HTML. If you look at your .a5w page, you'll see all the output html is calculated before it's displayed on the page. It is, therefore, readily available -- I think maybe you're worrying too much about "what comes first."

The x_Grid_Items.Output.Body.Grid_HTML is just a string of html characters, so all I did below is apply a bit of string-handling with some html tags to get what I wanted.

Your description of what you want is a little vague -- if you need more help, please try to be as precise as possible about what you want.

Yeah, you're probably right. But the reason your stuff worked is that the reference to x_Grid_Items... is already defined in the grid.
I was attempting to add something to the freeform area above the grid that didn't exist in the grid. It worked when I added all of the logic there, including the process that opened a set, read the set, looked at a session variable, added up a number and then printed that number at the end of the set reads. Nothing stops me from doing that. And it worked, just like I wanted it to. Unfortunately, the grid doesn't know what a session variable is so I get a warning message in the preview window. It still lets me publish it however and when it runs on the page, it has access to the session variables.
A lot of times, Steve, us newbies don't know enough to describe our problems. That's part of the process and value of posting this stuff.

[Steve Workings]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

Maybe all you need to do is DIM your session variable in your code?

dim session.myvariablename as c

for instance.

General programming practice should check to see if a variable exists and has a value before you proceed. Functions like eval_valid()are used frequently in WAS development.

Does that help?

[SteveHanson]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

Maybe all you need to do is DIM your session variable in your code?

dim session.myvariablename as c

for instance.

General programming practice should check to see if a variable exists and has a value before you proceed. Functions like eval_valid()are used frequently in WAS development.

Does that help?

Most definitely. As long as the code doesn't get confused with two sessionid variables; the one in the code and the one on the server.

[Steve Workings]

Re: Can Grid Summary Variables be accessed programatically?

This won't cause any confusion. It just makes sure that the session variable at least exists for your code if it hasn't been created somewhere else.