How to enter identifiers

Process Commander uses identifiers in generated Java code. Identifiers in Process Commander are identical to Java identifiers, except:

A dash character (-) appears in Process Commander where an underscore character (_) is used in Java.
Identifiers are limited to 255 characters. Identifiers that are parts of a key to an object are limited to 128 characters, or less in specific cases.

Where you need identifiers

These facilities require use of identifiers:

1. A key part of rules of these rule types must be a valid identifier:

Activities (Rule-Obj-Activity)

Connect Java rules (Rule-Connect-Java)

Edit input rules (Rule-Edit-Input)

Edit validate rules (Rule-Edit-Validate)

Flow action rules (Rule-Obj-FlowAction)

Function rules (Rule-Utility-Function)

Harness rules (Rule-HTML-Harness)

Libraries (Rule-Utility-Library)

List rules (Rule-Obj-List)

List view rules (Rule-Obj-ListView)

Map values (Rule-Obj-MapValue)

Model rules (Rule-Obj-Model)

Paragraph rules (Rule-HTML Paragraph)

Properties (Rule-Obj-Property)

Section rules (Rule-HTML-Section)

Summary view rules (Rule-Obj-SummaryView)

3. For Value Group and Page Group properties, each subscript value must be valid Java identifiers. The following are acceptable:

StateCapital("VT")
ZipCode(Customer)
Domaine(Entre-Deux-Mers-2005)

The quotes are optional.

You can't use a value that starts with a digit as an a subscript. The following are not correct, where the property is a Value Group or Page Group.

StateCapital(8)
ZipCode(02138)
Domaine(4X4)

4. All values of Single Value properties with a Type of Identifier must be a valid identifier.

5. In activities, the names of parameters and local variables must be valid identifiers.

6. In flow rules, the names of parameters must be valid identifiers.

7. Values you enter or assign to properties of type Identifier must be valid identifiers.

In some situations, Process Commander may accept other formats, but follow these guidelines to avoid problems. Internally, Process Commander converts any characters other than letters and digits in these fields to an underscore character; this can cause unintended duplicates.

Full definition

An identifier is sequence of Java letters and Java digits, the first of which must be a Java letter, that is not a Java keyword.

Letters and digits can be drawn from the full Unicode character set. A Java letter is a character for which the method Character.isJavaIdentifierStart(int) returns true.

Java letters include uppercase and lowercase ASCII Latin letters A-Z and a-z, and underscore (/u005f). (The dollar sign is allowed but reserved for generated Java code.)

See java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/lexical.html for a precise formal definition of Java identifiers.

Standard function

In an expression, call the standard function rule ValidateJavaIdentifier( ) to test whether a property contains a valid identifier.

Choosing good rule and data instance names

Technical category