Salesforce

How Do I Format an Expression in the Expression Window? (Magic xpa 4.x)

« Go Back

Information

 
Created BySalesforce Service User
Approval Process StatusPublished
Objective
Description

How Do I Format an Expression in the Expression Window? (Magic xpa 4.x)

Some expressions can be very long and complex. For instance, suppose you have a nested IF statement:

IF(I='N', 'Entering a new transaction', IF(I='P' and J='00/00/0000'DATE, 'Transaction is being processed', IF(I='P' and J<>'00/0000'DATE,'Order has been sent to Shipping', 'Order has shipped')))

While this is syntactically correct, it is difficult for a human to read. It is much easier to read if you add some line breaks and spacing:

IF(I='N',

'Entering a new transaction',

IF(I='P' and J='00/00/0000'DATE,

'Transaction is being processed',

IF(I='P' and J<>'00/0000'DATE,

'Order has been sent to Shipping',

'Order has shipped')))


Here is how you format an expression in Magic xpa.

Formatting an Expression

  1. Zoom (F5 or double click) to the Expressions Rules. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+E to jump to the Expression Rules from anywhere.

  2. Press F6 (Edit->Wide). This will cause the expression you are parked on to expand, so it is the only expression in the Expression window.

  3. Now that you are in Wide mode, you can press Enter, and a line break will appear in the expression. You can also add spaces to indent text as desired, or use tabs.

  4. When you are done, press Ctrl+Enter, the OK button, the X box on the upper right, or press Escape twice. Pressing “Enter” to leave won’t work in Wide mode, because the Enter key is interpreted as a line feed.

Note that when you add line breaks, this does in fact add a CRLF (Carriage Return and Line Feed character) to the expression. This doesn’t matter to Magic xpa, but if you are putting text out to, say, a message box, adding a line feed to the text will cause the message to have a line feed at runtime too. This allows you to format text for output purposes as well as for programmer readability.

Reference
Attachment 
Attachment