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What is it for?

An attribute is used to define the properties of your entities, thereby defining the data that can exist in your application. A multivalued attribute can contain more than one value of the same type. 

What is it?

An attribute is a property of an entity. Every attribute is of a specific data type. For example the entity Person can have attributes like: Name (type: string), Gender (type: Boolean) and Date of birth (type: Date).

An attribute can:

  • have its values be limited to values specified in a value list (see Value list)
  • have multiple values (be multi-valued)

  • have a default value

  • can have an associated set of unit tests

How does an attribute get a value

An attribute can get a value through logic, or it can be set by the user, a service, a function flow or a web service.

When the value is derived through logic, a business rule, decision table or data rule determines the value of the attribute. The value is usually dependent on values of other attributes. When an attribute gets a value in this way we say that the value is "system set". A system set value is only determined when the value is necessary, for example when it is shown on a page or used as input for a service.

The value can also be set explicitly by the user. We call this value "user set". This is the case when the value is filled in on a page. Other ways to make give an attribute a user set value is through the use of a service. This also covers other situations like the use of a web service or a function flow. When an attribute has a user set value, this value will be fixed until the value is cleared, or another value is explicitly set.

Attribute Types: boolean, string, number, date, datetime, percentage, currency, integer

The Data type field is used to set the data type of an attribute.
Data typeDescription
BooleanContains a boolean TRUE or FALSE value, or UNKNOWN
StringContains a text string of max. 500 characters
NumberContains a numerical value
DateContains a date. The format depends on the locale of the application server
DatetimeContains a date and time. The format depends on the locale of the application server
Percentage

Contains a numerical value, representing a percentage. Note that that a value of a percentage is treated just like any number.

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the percentage is mainly used for presentation, in mathematical operations the percentage acts the same as a Number. If you want a percentage attribute to act as a percentage in a multiplication (i.e., 25 % * 80 = 20) , you have to divide the result by 100.

CurrencyContains a numerical value, representing a currency
IntegerContains an integer value

For the numerical types (Number/Percentage/Currency/Integer), there are rules which mathematical operations can be applied between attributes of the same or different type. See Expression function reference.


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