Dynamic Field Selection Batch Macro Not Working: not sure why

[bsharbo]

Hello everyone. I am trying to produce a batch macro that would allow end users to pass in a datastream, and also a comma delimited list of columns they would like to keep from that datastream. I want to accomplish this using the update action "update inner XML"/

However I am running into the error that "no Fields have been selected for output" when trying to test my macro, and I can't figure out why.

I actually built something extremely similar using the transpose tool. I built a tool taht would take a list of "key fields" and would transpose a dataset across all of the columns by those keys.  In theory I had thought this should work the exact same, but I am clearly missing something.

Does anyone have any insight into why this macro might not be working?  Thank you very much for your help!

Note: I believe there is a work-around solution where I could use the dynamic re-name and select tool to keep only the columns I want, however I was truly hoping to solve it using the XML method...  if the XML method isn't possible I would like to understand why more clearly! :-)

[anthony · Accepted solution]

Hi, I took your string and inserted into full xml and used the update outer xml option and it worked... i think.

'<Configuration><OrderChanged value="False" /> <SelectFields><SelectField field="'

+ Replace([#1], ",", '" selected="True" /><SelectField field="') +

'" selected="True" /> </SelectFields></Configuration>'

abc ttt
1 3

i added xyz as input and got

abc xyz ttt
1 2 3

[bsharbo]

Anthony, your solution is perfect and accomplishes exactly what I need.

Do you have any insight into why you would have to replace the entire outer XML in this case instead of just replacing the inner XML?  I am a little confused as to when the outer is necessary versus when updating the Inner is Necessary... In both cases I would have expected that the XML should have been the same (clearly it wasn't) according to my logic, but one worked and the other didn't...

Thanks for your help!

[anthony]

Your guess is as good as mine but i assume its inner xml is something different than we think it is - i just tried putting the select xml into the xml parser and it returns 2 INNER XML so maybe that is it? I think i tried deleting the unknown when i first tested and it did not work but maybe that was someother step.