Name

Name is the name of the record. The name can be seen above a selected edge or in the Outline. Only limited set of characters is allowed here: letters of English alphabet, numbers and underscore.

Label

Contrary to the Name, the Label can contain diacritic and space characters. See Field Name vs. Label vs. Description.

Type

One of the following three can be selected: delimited, fixed, mixed. For more information, see Record Types.

Record delimiter

Record delimiter is a delimiter following the last field meaning the end of the record. If the delimiter in the last row of the Record pane in its Delimiter column is displayed grayish, it is this record delimiter. If it is black, it is another, non-default delimiter defined for the last field which follows it and precedes the record delimiter.

For more detailed information, see Changing and Defining Delimiters.

Record Size

Record size is the length of the record counted in number of characters. It can be changed there.

The record size is displayed for fixed or mixed record type only.

Default Delimiter

Default delimiter is a delimiter which, by default, follows each field of the record except the last one. This delimiter is displayed in each other row (except the last one) of the Record pane in its Delimiter column if it is grayish. If it is black, it is another, non-default delimiter defined for such a field which overrides the default one and is used instead.

The Default delimiter is displayed for delimited or mixed records type only.

For more detailed information, see Changing and Defining Delimiters.

Skip Source Rows

Skip source rows defines the number of records that will be skipped for each input file. If an edge with this attribute is connected to a Reader, this value overrides the default value of the Number of skipped records per source attribute, which is 0. If the Number of skipped records per source attribute is not specified, this number of records are skipped from each input file. If the attribute in the Reader is set to any value, it overrides this property value. Remember that these two values are not summed.

Description

The description stores user notes concerning the record. The description can contain several paragraphs.

Quoted strings

Fields containing a special character (comma, newline, or double quote) have to be enclosed in quotes. Only single/double quote is accepted as the quote character. If Quoted strings is true, special characters are not treated as delimiters and are:

If a component has this attribute (e.g. ParallelReader, ComplexDataReader, FlatFileReader, FlatFileWriter), its value is set according to the settings of Quoted strings in metadata on input/output port. However, the true/false value in a component has a higher priority than the one in metadata - you can override it.

Example (e.g. for ParallelReader): To read input data "25"|"John", switch Quoted strings to true and set Quote character to ". This will produce two fields: 25|John.

Quote Character

Quote character specifies which kind of quotes will be used in Quoted strings. If a component has this attribute (e.g. ParallelReader, ComplexDataReader, FlatFileReader, FlatFileWriter), its value is set according to the settings of Quote character in metadata on input/output port. However, the value in a component has a higher priority than the one in metadata - you can override it.

Locale

This is the locale that is used for the whole record. This property can be useful for date formats or for decimal separator, for example. It can be overridden by the Locale specified for individual field.

For detailed information, see Locale.

Locale Sensitivity

Applied for the whole record. It can be overridden by the Locale sensitivity specified for individual field (of string data type).

For detailed information, see Locale Sensitivity.

Time Zone

Applied for the whole record. It can be overridden by the Time zone specified for individual field (of date data type).

See Time Zone for detailed information.

Null Value

This property is set for the whole record. It is used to specify what values of fields should be processed as null. By default, empty field or empty string ("") are processed as null. You can set this property value to any string of characters that should be interpreted as null. All of the other string values remain unchanged. If you set this property to any non-empty string, empty string or empty field value will remain to be empty string ("").

Multiple null values can be specified using \\| delimiter. For example, if you would like to recognize both strings NULL and N/A as a null value, just use NULL\\|N/A.

It can be overridden by the value of Null value property of individual field.

Preview Attachment

This is the file URL of the file attached to the metadata. It can be changed there or located using the Browse... button.

Preview Charset

This is the charset of the file attached to the metadata. It can be changed there or by selecting from the combobox.

Preview Attachment Metadata Row

This is the number of the row of the attached file where record field names are located.

Preview Attachment Sample Data Row

This is the number of the row of the attached file from where field data types are guessed.

Key Fields

The Key fields field contains all field names of fields marked using Print field value into log with token status button (from the record pane).

EOF as Delimiter

If EOF as delimiter is true, the end of file is considered as a record delimiter.

If EOF as delimiter is set up on a record level and on a field level, the record level has higher priority.

charset

This is the charset of the record. For example, when metadata are extracted from dBase files, these properties may be displayed.

dataOffset

dataOffset is displayed for fixed or mixed record type only.

Name

This is the same field name as in the Record pane.

See Field Name vs. Label vs. Description.

Label

Label is similar to the Name, but the arbitrary characters can be used.

Type

This is the same data type as in the Record pane.

For more detailed information, see Data Types in Metadata.

Container Type

Container type determines whether a field can store multiple values (of the same type). There are two options: list and map. Switching back to single makes it a common single-value field again.

For more information, see Multivalue Fields.

Delimiter

This is the non-default field delimiter as in the Record pane. If it is empty, the default delimiter is used instead.

The delimiter is on the right side of the corresponding field.

For more detailed information, see Changing and Defining Delimiters.

Size

This is the same size as in the Record pane.

Nullable

This can be true or false. The default value is true. In such a case, the field value can be null. Otherwise, null values are prohibited and graph fails if null is met.

Default

This is the default value of the field. It is used if you set the Autofilling property to default_value.

For more detailed information, see Autofilling Functions.

Length

Displayed for decimal data type only. For decimal data types you can optionally define its length. It is the maximum number of digits in this number. The default value is 12.

For more detailed information, see Data Types in Metadata.

Scale

Displayed for decimal data type only. For decimal data types you can optionally define scale. It is the maximum number of digits following the decimal dot. The default value is 2.

For more detailed information, see Data Types in Metadata.

Description

Description is user defined long text concerning the particular field. The field can be several paragraphs long.

Format

Format defines the parsing and/or the formatting of a boolean, date, decimal, integer, long, number, and string data field.

For more information, see Data Formats.

Locale

This property can be useful for date formats or for decimal separator, for example. It overrides the Locale specified for the whole record.

For detailed information, see Locale.

Locale Sensitivity

Displayed for string data type only. Is applied only if Locale is specified for the field or the whole record. It overrides the Locale sensitivity specified for the whole record.

For detailed information, see Locale Sensitivity.

Time Zone

Displayed for date data type only. It overrides the Time zone specified for the whole record.

For detailed information, see Time Zone.

Null Value

This property can be set up to specify what values of fields should be processed as null. By default, empty field or empty string ("") are processed as null. You can set this property value to any string of characters that should be interpreted as null. All of the other string values remain unchanged. If you set this property to any non-empty string, empty string or empty field value will remain to be empty string ("").

It overrides the value of Null Value property of the whole record.

Multiple values can be used as a null value. See Null Value as a record property.

Trim

If true, the leading and trailing white space characters are trimmed. It is performed on data in readers.

Autofilling

If defined, field marked as autofilling is filled with a value by one of the functions listed in the Autofilling Functions section.

Shift

This is the gap between the end of one field and the start of the next one, when the fields are part of fixed or mixed record and their sizes are set to some value.

EOF as Delimiter

This can be set to true or false according to whether EOF character is used as delimiter. It can be useful when your file does not end with any other delimiter. If you did not set this property to true, run of the graph with such data file would fail (by default it is false). Displayed in delimited or mixed data records only.

The EOF as delimiter can be set up on the record level. If the values differ, the value on the record level has higher priority.