Automation Guide Action-based testing language Built-in actions Test Support actions Data sets

 filter

filter

Description

Establish a named filter for an inline or dedicated data set.

Arguments

• name

  Name to assign to the filter.

• criterion

  Boolean expression establishing the filter criteria.

Valid contexts

This action may be used within the following project items: test modules, data set modules, user-defined actions

Applicable Systems/Platforms

Use of this action is supported on the following systems/platforms: Windows, Linux.

Notes

• This action may be employed within either a dedicated data set or an inline data set (within the confines of a create data set/end create data set construct, in a test module or user-defined action).

• The filter action associates a set of filter criteria with a name. It does not, in and of itself, have the effect of filtering data. The actual filtering of data occurs when the established filter is invoked, either by a use data set, use filter, or set data set value action.

• When the filter is applied, those rows of the data set whose values do not produce a True when applied to the expression in criterion are filtered out. For example, if criterion is set to region = 2 and period >= 2002, the filter excludes those rows in which region is not 2, as well as those rows for which period is earlier than 2002.

• The following operators may be used within an expression in thecriterion argument:

  
  Table 1. Comparison operators

  Precedence	Comparison operator	Meaning
  4	=	equal to
  4	<>	not equal to
  4	>	greater than
  4	>=	greater than or equal to
  4	<	less than
  4	<=	less than or equal to

  
  Table 2. Logical operators

  Precedence	Logical operator	Meaning
  5	not	Value is TRUE if its operand is FALSE.
  6	and	Value is TRUE if and only if both sides of the and operator are TRUE.
  7	or	Value is TRUE if either side of the or operator is TRUE.

  
  
  Note:
  For the full list of operator precedence, see [here](/automation-guide/action-based-testing-language/the-test-language/operator-precedence).
  

• This action supports the <ignore> modifier. If the string <ignore> is present as the value of any of the arguments, or any argument contains an expression that evaluates to <ignore>, the action is skipped during execution.

Applicable Built-In Settings

The following settings are applicable to this action: remove double quotes from cells.

Example

Related information

repeat for data set