Pimping finderEx.js

Question

The library finderEx.js was created long time ago to make batch scripts more easy that create man objects, potentially considering an external source as input. Problems like "I just want to create a failure mode X in my project but just once and then use it while the script runs" had to be addressed. So it introduces many functions like findOrCreateXXX as shown in this example:

findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package");

This is nice and works but soemtimes external sources have typos, or otherwise slightly different strings inisde for example leading or traling blanks. Like this:

findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package ");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, " New Package ");

This will create 3 packages which is not what we want. Reason is how findPackage is imlemented, it uses the and() function of the Finder API:

Global.getFinder(scope).findByType(Metamodel.projectmodel.PJPackage, true).find("name", name);

This uses a direct comparison of actual and expected value. To improve we coudl do:

Global.getFinder(scope).findByType(Metamodel.projectmodel.PJPackage, true).find("name", name.trim());

This works for the above two exampels but fails when we face these changes:

findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package ");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "new package ");

So upper case/lower case comparison. Now we have to give up the usage of "and" and have to write our own filter. This version would work:

Global.getFinder(scope).findByType(Metamodel.projectmodel.PJPackage, true).filter(function (p) {
	return p.name.trim().toLowerCase() == name.trim().toLowerCase();
});

As you can see we now start to compare actual and expected values ourselves. Grreat, just one package gets created. Next problem could be more blanks inside, typical user input:

findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package ");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "new package ");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "New Package ");
findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, " new package ");

To solve that, we could (just one idea) strip all blanks from the values and compare like:

Global.getFinder(scope).findByType(Metamodel.projectmodel.PJPackage, true).filter(function (p) {
	return p.name.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/ /g,"") == name.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/ /g,"");
});

Works nicely but would allow also

findOrCreatePackage(finder.project, "n e w p a c k a g e ");

I just have shown how you can tweak the finderEx.js library to your own interpretation of whether an object with a given name already exists, you may take it from here and extend.

Happy Scripting

Jan

medini_1024169437 · Answer

Seems that in some circumstances, a Java String is passed instead of a JS string, the signatures for replacing strings is different so I had to improve the equals again:

/**
 * Compares two names irrespective of any white spaces, either leading or trailing or "in between".
 * Comparison is case insensitive too.
 * 
 * @param {string|String} n1 first name
 * @param {string|String} n2 second name
 * @returns {boolean} true if both are equal in the above sense
 */
function equals(n1, n2) {
	// make sure we deal with JS string and not java.lang.String
	n1 = '' + (n1 ? n1 : '');
	n2 = '' + (n2 ? n2 : '');
	// now trim and lower cases and replace white spaces
	n1 = n1.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g,".");
	n2 = n2.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g,".");
	return n1 == n2;
}

Happy Scripting

medini_1024169437 · Answer

I was further working on the code to

* handle all kind of white spaces not just blanks
* avoid that "A A A" matches "AAA" so basically reduce the space between 2 words to a single blank

I move dthe comparison into a separate fucntion:

/**
 * Compares two names irrespective of any white spaces, either leading or trailing or "in between".
 * Comparison is case insensitive too.
 * 
 * @param {string} n1 first name
 * @param {string} n2 second name
 * @returns {boolean} true if both are equal in the above sense
 */
function equals(n1, n2) {
	n1 = n1 ? n1 : "";
	n2 = n2 ? n2 : "";
	// now trim and lower cases and replace white spaces
	n1 = n1.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g,".");
	n2 = n2.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/\s+/g,".");
	return n1 == n2;
}

The usage should reduce to

var found = Global.getFinder(scope).findByType(Metamodel.projectmodel.PJPackage, true).filter(function (p) {
		return equals(p.name, name);
	});

I tested with 24.1 and 24.2

Hapy Scripting

Jan

medini_1024169437 · Answer

Just for completeness I post a complete function now to have kind of copy/paste blueprint for you own finderEx functions or to manipulate finderEx.js:

// helper
function findPackage(scope, name) {
	if (!scope) {
		console.error("Scope is undefined in find method!");
		return undefined;
	}
	var found = Global.getFinder(scope).findByType(Metamodel.projectmodel.PJPackage, true).filter(function (p) {
		return p.name.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/ /g,"") == name.trim().toLowerCase().replace(/ /g,"");
	});
	if (!found.isEmpty()) {
		return found.first();
	}
	return undefined;
}