https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67108#M19713 Helpful topic, indeed! Tue, 24 Oct 2017 19:03:00 GMT tjunicho 2017-10-24T19:03:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67098#M19703 What is the difference between Ordinal and match index when we spying the elements? In which case we should use Ordinal and in which case Match index? Fri, 28 Apr 2017 00:12:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67098#M19703 NiteshGoyal 2017-04-28T00:12:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67099#M19704 Ordinal is just an attribute from within the application, much like any other. Match Index is a BP setting that tells Application Modeller to stop searching the application once it has found the nth matching element. Fri, 28 Apr 2017 13:59:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67099#M19704 John__Carter 2017-04-28T13:59:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67100#M19705 Ordinal is the order in which the elements were made during the application development and Match Index John has pointed out correctly. Wed, 03 May 2017 14:41:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67100#M19705 PrateekMehan 2017-05-03T14:41:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67101#M19706 Ordinal is OK but I don't entirely trust it for all applications - I've had experience of it being an unreliable or inconsistent identifier. Wed, 03 May 2017 16:51:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67101#M19706 John__Carter 2017-05-03T16:51:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67102#M19707 Yea John, Order is disturbed when application goes under maintenance or when new build of application has been imposed. Thu, 18 May 2017 17:52:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67102#M19707 PrateekMehan 2017-05-18T17:52:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67103#M19708 Thank you Prateek and John. We are facing similar issue where the ordinal keeps changing every time a new built is created. Do you think match index is better choice in this case? what other option do we have? Thu, 17 Aug 2017 20:50:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67103#M19708 SagarMehta 2017-08-17T20:50:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67104#M19709 Hi, Can you give one example on both match index and ordinal ? Mon, 16 Oct 2017 13:55:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67104#M19709 harathi_salla 2017-10-16T13:55:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67105#M19710 Match Index is a value created by BP and it means 'give me the Nth element matching my chosen attributes'. Match Reverse is similar and means 'search the application in reverse order'. Ordinal is a value created by the target application, that means 'this is the nth child element within the parent element'. However experience has taught me not to trust that Ordinal will be consistent; often it depends on the behaviour of the application. Tue, 17 Oct 2017 15:13:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67105#M19710 John__Carter 2017-10-17T15:13:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67106#M19711 Thanks John, So, there is concept of duplicate items when using ORDINAL. (In case of match index, we may found duplicates and we tell BP to find the Nth element when duplicates found.) Tue, 24 Oct 2017 00:17:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67106#M19711 harathi_salla 2017-10-24T00:17:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67107#M19712 Adi - yes, Ordinal has nothing to do with uniqueness, it's just an index number. Often this number is constant but in some apps it is unreliable as part of your element identification. Match Index is an instruction to BP to take the Nth matching element and ignore any other matches. Match Reverse make the search go bottom->up instead of the default top->down. Tue, 24 Oct 2017 12:50:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67107#M19712 John__Carter 2017-10-24T12:50:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67108#M19713 Helpful topic, indeed! Tue, 24 Oct 2017 19:03:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67108#M19713 tjunicho 2017-10-24T19:03:00Z https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67109#M19714 very Useful Thu, 01 Nov 2018 13:33:00 GMT https://community.blueprism.com/t5/Product-Forum/Difference-between-ordinal-and-match-index/m-p/67109#M19714 AbhilashSingha1 2018-11-01T13:33:00Z