Expression Language Techniques

Expression language techniques are a set of programming conventions that provides a set of 'patterns' for accomplishing programmatic tasks with the Expression Language. 

Some of the techniques that will be discussed on the following pages include: 

• Finding the First and Last rows for a student:  Finding the First and Last Rows for a Student
• Suppressing fields (i.e. blanking them out) in successive rows of a report: 
• Combining multiple rows of information into a single row: Concatenation: Putting Multiple Strings Together
• Capturing information into the "Last Row for Student"
• Populating multiple form fields from a single Column of extracted data 
• Counting items for students. 
• Deciding which rows to print: building and analyzing parameters which display a list of options.
• Deciding What Expressions to print - breaking up big messy Expressions into separate Columns and controlling newlines. 
• Filling forms: 
  • Checking checkboxes - Checking multiple checkboxes based on a single field (e.g. ethnicity) 
• Working with Contact2 Records 
  • Selecting "Mother" & "Father" from a list of guardians 
  • Selecting an "Extra Guardian" 
  • Select Special Contacts (e.g. SwiftReach) 
  • Creating a list of siblings
  • Custody-Sensitive Emergency Verification Form
• Working with Dates & Date Formatting 
• Working with Strings (i.e. Text) and Text Formatting: Working with Text (Strings)
• Summing & Averaging - Working with Totals