What are the differences in writing script for automation and profile properties

medini_1005438711

There should be some differences in writing scripts for automation and profile properties especially on interfaces between the script and the tool (how the script retrieves input values from the tool and return resulting value to the tool, what predefined variables are available and so on).

medini_1024169437

Hi Toru,

welcome to the forum and thanks for the very good question.

There are a few differences indeed. Batch scripting was introduced later so some features initially were only available there, but we later tried to catch up to also support stuff in profile property scripting.

I'll try to explain here shortly.

Input

For profile property scripting the general input is the object you script, represented as "self". The idea of "self" was adopted from OCL constraints.

self.attribute == true

For batch scripts there is no such input because the batch script is executed on a whole project. So main input is either the "selection" or the predefined "finder" object that gives access to all objects in the project. Sometimes I use this starter code to share code between batch and profile script:

var self = selection[0];

Results

This is actually the same in both environments. The last executed expression is used as the "script result". In a profile property case, the result is shown in a cell or field, for batch scripts its shown with a dialog (strings, exceptions, ...) or selected in the model browser (single object or array or list of objects). There is a separate article explaining that.

Variables

Besides the input, there are a number of predefined objects that SHOULD be the same for both worlds. However, for historical reasons it not always the case. Anyway, objects as "finder", "load" etc. should be there in batch but also in profile scripts.

Note that in principle that is true for Java Script but also for OCL.

Happy Scripting

Jan

PS: You can also script OCL in a batch mode, so a script that ends with .ocl. You can use that to quickly write OCL statements, test them and later copy paste them to the property script or constraint. Be aware that NO elf is available though as mentioned above.