InfoPath Dev

Hi

I am using infopath 2007

I have a data paths which look like this…

/dfs:myFields/dfs:dataFields/d:ApplicationAliases/@Alias

/dfs:myFields/dfs:dataFields/d:ApplicationAliases/@ApplicationID

Where ApplicationAliases is repeating.

I need to ensure that combinations of @ApplicationID and @Alias are unique.  Applicationid is a dropdown, Alias is a text field.  I need to translate Alias to stop xyz and XYZ being entered.

So my plan was to get the preceding sibling working on @Alias – then change it to be @Alias[../@ApplictionID=current()../@Applicationid] (I don’t know if that will work - correction would be appreciated !).

So in trying to get the preceding/following sibling to work I started with the following, which Jimmy helped me get working in another form of slightly different structure.

translate(., "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") = xdMath:Eval(preceding-sibling::my:Aliases | following-sibling::my:Aliases, "translate(., 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz')")

(many thanks to Jimmy for his help in this one.)

Initially I tried changing my:Aliases to @Alias – but that does not work, I have found the post http://www.infopathdev.com/forums/p/6891/25126.aspx#25126 which I think may be a similar problem to mine – my understanding of this is that I need to go UP the data tree and then back down again – so I have tried ../@Alias still to no avail.

Could someone point me in the right direction please ?

Thank you

Catharine

Well, the simple answer to how to use preceding and following sibling with this structure would be to use something like this:

../preceding-sibling::d:ApplicationAliases/@Alias

But since you're checking for unique combinations, you might have a complicated situation on your hands. Are you saying that

John    App1
John    App2
Jill       App1
Jill       App2

 would be ok, but

John    App2
John    App2
Jill       App1
Jill       App2

would be invalid because there are two John - App2 rows?

Yes that is exactly the case.

Every app  and every alias may appear serveral times.... but it is the combination which has to be unique

Catharine

How's this:

translate(concat(. , '[|]', ../@ApplicationID), "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz") = xdMath:Eval(../preceding-sibling::d:ApplicationAliases | ../following-sibling::d:ApplicationAliases, "translate(concat(@Alias, '[|]', @ApplicationID), 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz')")

I have put this in my form and it works - you are a super hero...

I am now trying to 'decode' it for the future...

translate(concat(. , '[|]', ../@ApplicationID), "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz")  - I think you are concatenating the two items together first, then translating the concatenated result.

 xdMath:Eval(../preceding-sibling::d:ApplicationAliases | ../following-sibling::d:ApplicationAliases, "translate(concat(@Alias, '[|]', @ApplicationID), 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz')")

- so in this bit you are going to the parent and getting the preceding following siblings - then concatenating the Alias and ApplicationID 

 Brilliant !

Thank you very much

Excellent!  Glad to help, and it looks like you're understanding the logic just fine. 

Just so you know, the '[|]' there is an arbitrary piece of text to separate the Alias and ApplicationID, so that there's no risk of false positives when you concatenate them together.  I used '[|]' because I figured that character sequence was unlikely to appear in either of those fields.

 Happy trails!