JSON EDL Advanced

Excel data location (EDL) may define an array of excel cells. For this purpose, Boolean JSON attribute IS_ARRAY is set to true (if missing, default value is false). Accordingly, fields: ROW_INDICES and COLUMN_INDICES are used to define arrays of row and column indices. Since all row/column indices are given explicitly it is not needed to be consequent numbers hence more complex sets of excel cells are gathered in the array in this way. Column indices can be set in two ways: as integers (i.e. indices as number) or as column labels (as used in the Excel standard cell addressing). For example: "COLUMN_INDICES" : [2,3,4] or "COLUMN_INDICES" : ["B","C","D"] are both valid specifications. Also for continues and large sets of indices, an alternative string based syntax is also allowed e.g. "COLUMN_INDICES" : "2-40".

Typically IS_ARRAY option is used to define variables which are arrays (see previous section Variables).

EDL attribute SOURCE_COMBINATION may be set true to define a piece of information obtained as a combination of data from different columns and rows. All data sources are concatenated into a single text value. If needed attribute COMBINATION_SEPARATOR may be used to set a separator string for the source combination concatenation.

Examples for concatenating the values of two cells with keyword SOURCE_COMBINATION:

{
	"SOURCE_COMBINATION" : true,
	"IS_ARRAY" : true,	
	"ITERATION" : "ABSOLUTE_LOCATION",
	"COLUMN_INDEX" : "A",
	"COLUMN_INDICES" : ["A","C"],
	"ROW_INDEX" : 10   
}

The above EDL will produce string which a concatenation of the values of cells A10 and C10 i.e. "Cell(A10)Cell(C:10)".

Keyword COMBINATION_SEPARATOR could be added and as a results will be obtained string: "Cell(A10)--Cell(C:10)"

{
	"SOURCE_COMBINATION" : true,
	"IS_ARRAY" : true,
	"COMBINATION_SEPARATOR" : "--",
	"ITERATION" : "ABSOLUTE_LOCATION",
	"COLUMN_INDEX" : "A",
	"COLUMN_INDICES" : ["A","C"],
	"ROW_INDEX" : 10   
}

The cell could be combined in a reverse order (or any order if more than two cell are specified) e.g. following results will be obtained : "Cell(C10)--Cell(A:10)"

{
	"SOURCE_COMBINATION" : true,
	"IS_ARRAY" : true,
	"COMBINATION_SEPARATOR" : "--",
	"ITERATION" : "ABSOLUTE_LOCATION",
	"COLUMN_INDEX" : "A",
	"COLUMN_INDICES" : ["A","C"],
	"ROW_INDEX" : 10   
}

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