Every property has one of eleven property modes, determined in the Rule-Obj-Property rule. This is a permanent feature of a property that cannot be changed after you save a property rule.

The simplest property mode is Single Value. A Single Value property contains text that can represent HTML, a date or time, an identifier, a number, or a Boolean true/false value. On the clipboard, a Single Value mode corresponds to a Java String object. Properties with this mode can directly correspond to columns in the PegaRULES database. Properties with a mode other than Single Value are known as aggregate properties.

The modes can be viewed as variations of three types:

	Single	Array or List	Group
Value modes	Single Value	Value List	Value Group
Page modes	Page	Page List	Page Group
Java Object mode	Java Object	Java Object List	Java Object Group
Java Property modes	Java Property	Java Property List

Value modes

The modes Value List and Value Group identify properties that can have none, one, or multiple strings as the value. A Value List value is an ordered, indexed list of strings, sometimes called an array. A Value Group value contains one or multiple strings, unordered, each identified by a unique text index value.

In releases before Version 04-01, these modes were called String, StringList, and StringGroup.

Page modes

Three other property modes — Page, Page List, and Page Group — identify properties for which the value has a single or multiple page structure. Because property names and values themselves appear on a page, this definition is recursive.

For example, a top-level clipboard page Alpha can contain a property Beta of mode Page. The value of Beta (the contents of a page) can include a property Gamma of mode Page. The value of Gamma can include a property Omega of mode Single Value, which can have the value 3.14159.

In source HTML, refer to the value of Omega using a pega:r JSP tag or equivalent Reference directive. For example:

{Alpha.Beta.Gamma.Omega}

Java Object modes

A property of mode Java Object contains a reference to an instance of a Java object. If the source Java class implements the Serializable interface, a clipboard page containing this property can be saved into the PegaRULES database.

Property modes Java Object List and Java Object Group identify arrays of Java objects, or an unordered set of Java objects. These properties are primarily useful within Java steps of activities, and in function rules.

Java Property mode

Properties of these modes support the Java pages feature, which enables Process Commander applications to interact with external Java objects as though they were pages and properties on the clipboard.

For more information about this feature, see Working with Java Objects, a document available on the Integration section of the Pega Developer Network.

Internal representation of mode

The standard property Rule-Obj-Property.pyPropertyMode holds the mode of a property rule.

	aggregate property, page, Page List, Page Group, Single Value, source HTML, Value Group, Value List
	About Function rules About Property rules Reference directive Using the Clipboard tool Using Java in an activity step

Definitions — P