Standard Error Message Handling in the Equation Editor - Syntax Error

Brian Element

Forums

Hello Group Members,

The Equation Editor is a critical component in IDEA.
 
All arithmetical, conditional, logical and computational expressions can be built through the Equation Editor to support Direct Extraction / Criteria (Filtering) and / or Field Manipulation (New Field Additions).
 
An example ~ 
 
1 - INVOICE VALUE * COMMISSION PERCENT/100 to independently compute the Commission Amount due to the Agent per Customer Billing Invoice through a Field Manipulation.
 
2 - @betweendate(Contract Due Date, "20181201", "20190331") to filter out Facility Contracts expiring between 1st December 2018 and 31st March 2019
 
Often while building criteria in the Equation Editor, we may receive an error 'Syntax Error' upon Validation of the criteria.
 
It is quite normal to receive such error notifications while building criteria within the Equation Editor and the error resolution is simple and handy.
 
Syntax Error would mean that one has applied an incorrect Field in the criteria. In other words the Field referenced in the criteria does not appear in the underlying database.
 
Take the example from (1) above.
 
If instead of INVOICE VALUE * COMMISSION PERCENT/100 one inadvertently enters INVOICE AMOUNT * COMMISSION PERCENT/100, the Equation Editor will throw up a Syntax Error since the field INVOICE AMOUNT does not appear in the underlying data. INVOICE VALUE appears.
 
The easiest way to avoid Syntax Errors is do not type the field name manually into the Equation Editor box. This may create the grounds for the Syntax Error.
 
Just use the Field Listing in the Equation Editor or type the first letter of your required Field and select the same from the Field Display list.
 
Finally - in case you choose a wrong field in the criteria, it will also appear in red color font, indicating Syntax Error even before you validate the criteria.
 
Tomorrow we will look at error resolution for 'Mismatch Field Type' error type in the Equation Editor.
 
Best Regards
 
Group Admin Team

KrestonPta@Idea Thu, 03/14/2019 - 09:05

SYNTAX ERROR IN EQUATION EDITOR - PLEASE ASSIST
Hi,
I am a new user to IDEA 10. I want to remove a character from a string, so I am using the @Remove function. The field  was selected from the Field Listing and I would like to remove the commas from the field. The syntax I used was:
@Remove(DEBIET, ",")
But I keep getting a syntax error and the first comma (which is the parameter seperator) is highligthed in black, I therefore assume that is where the problem is then. The field type is a Character and I want it to stay a Character field type. 
Can you help?

Brian Element Fri, 03/15/2019 - 13:50

Hi I think we have solved this problem but just in case anyone else has this problem it is because the list separator might be different depending on your regional setting, such as in English the list separator is the comma (,) but in German and French it is the semi-colon (;).  Generally the equation editor will show what it is based on the icons at the top of the editor.