Let data items/collections have properties such as length or row number

[MikkoKamppila]

If I've understood correctly, data items and collections don't have properties such as length or number of rows. OK, BP isn't a fancy object oriented language offering full scale of tools, but...

I'd like to propose that at least collections should have "Row number" as a property and strings "Length", for example. Those would be handy to use in calculations or decision without first creating an action counting the number of rows.

Did some GUI mockuping as well 🙂

guimockup.png

[ChristianPanhan]

​Hello,

there is an action called "Count Rows" in the internal Collections-VBO but I would also prefer a property to use in expression-based stages. This would reduce the number of stages needed to build a process.

Today you need three things:
1. Data Item to store row Count
2. Action-Stage to "Count Rows"
3. Decision-Stage to maybe split into > 0 and = 0

With a property there are situations, where we could reduce this only to no. 3.

[MikkoKamppila]

Christian, the situation you described is exactly the one that made me to write the proposal. There are numerous occasions I've used those three steps!

The software robots are made to reduce burden of monotonic repetitive tasks from humans...let the developers enjoy the same luxury as well 😉

[ChristianPanhan]

​Mikko, I absolutely agree.

[AndrewPascal]

Totally agree - those three steps are a clunky solution. Can I also add the number of columns in the collection to this idea? You could either expose the properties of a collection like this:
[Collection.Rowcount] 
[Collection.ColumnCount]

or implement a couple of new functions like this:
RowCount([Collection]
ColumnCount([Collection])

[AmyTsaousi]

Hi Mikko, 

Thanks for submitting your idea, the team really like it and think it will be a very useful feature. I’ve updated the status to Under Consideration and you will see updates here as it progresses through the process.

Many thanks,

Amy