Placeholders

Placeholders are characters or strings that will later be replaced with specific data in the source code. For LF‑ET, placeholders begin with "$$".

Place­holders are usually only used in Ge­ne­ra­tion Vari­ant 2 (Simple class), i.e. when the source elements are defined in the deci­sion ta­ble.

Placeholders and their meaning
$$Datn

The date of the generation timestamp in the numerical format YYYYMMDD.
$$DtName (de: $$EtName)

The name of the decision table.
$$Footer

Decision table footers (these mark the end of the ge­ne­ra­ted source code).
If necessary, this placeholder can be used to move the comment ge­ne­ra­ted by default at the end of the source code to any position in the source code.
$$Header

Decision table headers with important information such as the generation date and time.
If necessary, this placeholder can be used to move the comment ge­ne­ra­ted by default at the start of the source code to any position in the source code.
$$LastRuleID

The highest rule ID in the decision table. It can also be regarded as the technical version number of the decision table.
$$Nr

Number of the condition or action.
$$OccNr

The number (position) of a condition value or action value in the values table. This makes it easier to program source codes for condition values or action values when they differ only by this one value:

Instead of:

code for e.g. C01/01: (#STEP = 1)
code for e.g. C01/02: (#STEP = 2)
code for e.g. C01/03: (#STEP = 3)

you can now write or copy:

code for e.g. C01/01: (#STEP = $$OccNr)
code for e.g. C01/02: (#STEP = $$OccNr)
code for e.g. C01/03: (#STEP = $$OccNr)

Thus, it is no longer necessary to modify the source codes when making changes (e.g. moving, dele­ting or copying values).
$$Rule

The rule number of the currently ge­ne­ra­ted rule, i.e. the number of the rule column, see also: Standard sorting.
$$Rules

The current count of rule columns in the decision table.
$$RuleID

The rule ID of the currently ge­ne­ra­ted rule together with the LastRuleID of the decision table, with the format: #nn.mm (nn=RuleID, mm=LastRuleID). The format facilitates later automatic statistical analyses.
$$Symbol

The symbol of condition or action values.
$$Timn

The time of the generation timestamp in the numerical format HHMMSS.
$$Title

The title of condition or action values
$$Version

The timestamp of the source code generation, with the date and time separated by a point, e.g.: 20140307.115613.

Alternatively, the save time stamp of a decision table can be used, see ide.<Language>.baseOfVersion.

Upper case / lower case is irrelevant when using placeholders. When program code is ge­ne­ra­ted, the placeholders are replaced with the actual values at that time.

Example

An example for Java: Trace-Code generation in rule 5 of 10 for decision table “Test”:

Source code in decision table:
System.out.println("$$EtName, $$Version, $$Rules, $$Rule");
Generated source code:
System.out.println("Test, 20240721.115613, 10, 5");