Local string &TEXTLINE = "Value of " | &fld1name | " is " | &fld1value | ".";

Using MsgGetText, it can be re-written as follows:

Local string &TEXTLINE = MsgGetText(0, 0, "Value of %1 is %2.", &fld1name, &fld1value);

I find that the latter is easier to read and modify compared to the first, especially if there are a lot of values being concatenated.

What about performance? Wouldn’t the MsgGetText code needlessly query the database for message (0, 0)? Fortunately, I think not. Some tests with SQL trace turned on — and the cache freshly cleared — show that a query to the message catalog for message (0, 0) is never performed by the application server. A wonderful optimization.

… suppose you want to provide a more generic sort, with comparison function at the end of it. You want to use the array class Sort method, but your process has to be generic: you aren’t certain if you’re comparing two records or two strings. You could define a class that had as its main method a comparison, and return a -1, 0, or 1. Then write your personalized sort, extending the array class method Sort.

I find this statement very vague and lacking in details, that I am doubtful about its accuracy.

The statement seems to somewhat describe how one would define the ordering of objects in Java’s array and collection classes by creating an implementation of java.util.Comparator interface. However, according to PeopleBooks, the Sort method of the Array class does not have any optional parameters where such a comparator object may be provided.

I couldn’t find anything else in PeopleBooks where it describes the implementation of array sorting in the manner described in the statement above. Can anyone shed some light into this, and if possible, provide additional details? Does the PeopleCode Array class Sort method have an undocumented feature similar Java Arrays’ sort method?

If you declare an instance variable as private you can still access it as a private property in another instance of the same class. For example, given the following declaration:

class Example
  private
     instance number &Num;
end-class;

A method of Example could reference another Example instance’s &Num instance variable as follows:

   &X = &SomeOtherExample.Num;

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However, there are some cases where inserting within the same scroll might be desirable. For example, based on the data entered on a row of a scroll, a new matching row must be inserted within the same scroll.

Yes, you can always make concessions, like forcing the user to click a button on a higher scroll level. Yet if you are looking for a way to insert within the same scroll level, read on. This tutorial illustrates a technique for doing a row insert from PeopleCode to the same scroll where the PeopleCode program is running.
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text/html alone will allow you to format the text of your message. But if you need to display an image such as a logo, <img> tags inside your html will need to link to images stored in a web server somewhere. Sometimes, this is not ideal. With multipart/related, you can embed images in your email messages.

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If you’ve used web-based email services like Yahoo, then you’ll find it a common feature to allow attachments to be uploaded by a user from his workstation and send those attachments with the email message. Is this possible in PeopleSoft’s internet architecture? The answer is yes, this article will show you how.

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When developing PeopleTools customizations with SQL, do you think about whether the code being written will work for other databases as well? As a developer, the importance of this issue may not be apparent in your daily work. However, for your client or organization the long-term cost is vendor lock-in — making it more difficult and costly to switch database vendors when the need arises.

PeopleTools made it easy to code cross-platform SQL in your PeopleSoft applications, so there really is not much excuse for ignoring cross-platform compatibility issues further. There are 2 features in PeopleTools that are geared towards mitigating SQL cross-platform issues:

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To generate a series of paragraphs from an array &arPara:

   &html = &arPara.Join("</p><p>", "<p>", "</p>");

To create an unordered (bullet) list from &arList:

   &html = &arList.Join("</li><li>", "<ul><li>", "</li></ul>");

Related Posts

• Smarter coding techniques with arrays

If you are a programmer, you can save yourself lots of time and effort. You can often accomplish with a single regular expression in one or a few lines of code what would otherwise take dozens or hundreds.

In addition to that argument, writing your own implementation with dozens of lines of code also makes it prone to defects, and makes it more difficult to maintain. And if the required pattern is changed slightly, the impact on your code could be very huge, or even require a rewrite of your custom implementation. With regex, what is often required is to change a few characters in the pattern.^[2]

PeopleCode do not have an implementation of regular expressions, but fortunately, it is easy to utilize Java objects from PeopleCode. Note that regex capabilities was only added to Java since version 1.4.

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