ProductsMapForceMapping DesignVisual Function Builder

MapForce® 2012 includes the powerful visual function builder for defining and saving complex functions quickly and easily.

Visual Function Builder

The visual function builder allows you to combine multiple separate functions into one function that returns a single result. For instance, performing string manipulations, mathematical operations, and database lookups often involves stringing multiple functions and operations together to achieve the desired result. With the visual function builder, you can combine the various functions required to perform a particular data manipulation into one function, and then save it for use in all future integration projects.

MapForce allows you to design user-defined functions from scratch or combine functions already utilized in an existing mapping design. Functions are defined with the same intuitive user interface and drag and drop functionality used to create data mappings. To build a new function, simply drag functions from the available libraries onto the design pane and arrange them as required. Then select the functions that will comprise your user-defined function.

You will be prompted to name your new function, and it will be saved to the function library for use in other mapping projects.

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Inline User-Defined Functions

The visual function builder also supports the ability to create complex, sophisticated functions that operate on entire trees as input and/or output values. This feature not only allows you to create more effective user-defined functions, it also allows multiple users to collaborate by designing individual mappings as functions that can then be combined into larger, comprehensive mapping projects.

As a result, it is now possible to use filters and other functions that operate on entire XML elements inside user-defined functions. This increases the flexibility and usefulness of these functions to modularize complex mappings, thereby providing an environment that facilitates understanding of such mappings by other users and provides for easy maintenance of mappings when the underlying data model evolves.

Regular (Recursive) User-Defined Functions

As an alternative to inline functions, you can also create regular function calls that support recursion. Recursion lets you map data by expressing operations in terms of themselves.

In hierarchical data structures like XML, for instance, it is possible for an element to contain itself or be referenced, in some way or another, by a descendant. Creating a recursive user-defined function allows you to process this data, looping through the elements incrementally and returning data that has been evaluated dynamically.

This easy-to-use visual function builder enables the efficient reuse of functions and saves a considerable amount of time by allowing you to automate repetitive tasks. The visual function builder all but eliminates the need to write functions in other programming languages.

Experience the power of the visual function builder for simplifying and optimizing the use of data processing functions in your next mapping project. Download a free 30-day trial of MapForce.