Altova MapForce 2025 Professional Edition

There might be cases in which you want a node function to do something based on node metadata. By node metadata, we understand miscellaneous information about the node on which the function applies (e.g., a node name, value length, and precision), which is stored in the schema. The table below lists all possible metadata parameters that you can use in a node function. Note that some metadata parameters apply only to specific data types. MapForce will display a warning when you attempt to use metadata that is incompatible with the current node.

Add metadata to a node function

To add a metadata parameter to a node function, you need to create a node function and then click the Add Node Specifics option, which is located under the Node Functions window. This will open the Insert Input with Node Specific dialog box, in which you can select a relevant metadata parameter. Instead of the Add Node Specifics option, you can also choose one of the following options:

•Right-clicking an empty area in the mapping and selecting Insert Input from the context menu.

•Clicking the toolbar command.

•Clicking Insert Input in the Function menu.

When metadata is not supported by a node

When a metadata parameter is not supported by a node, you can instruct MapForce to return an empty sequence or not to apply the node function (both options are available in the Insert Input with Node Specific dialog box). The empty sequence must be handled; otherwise, the node function might not return a value at all. You would typically need to use sequence functions (e.g., substitute-missing and exists) or other component types to process the empty sequence further.

Example

The example below explains how to supply annotation text to a node function. For this example, you will need the following mapping: <Documents>\Altova\MapForce2025\MapForceExamples\Tutorial\MissingFields.mfd. In MissingFields.xsd (on which MissingFields.xml is based), we have added the following annotation for the Name element: Article name from catalog Spring 2022. Our goal is to supply this annotation to a node function and to see the annotation in the output. Follow the instructions below.

1.Create a node function for the Name element in the ArticlesOfClothing component.

2.Replicate the function shown below. To add a node_annotation parameter, click Add Node Specifics (see red rectangle below) and select this parameter from the list. To find out how to add and manipulate functions, see Functions Basics.

Output

The listing below shows that the annotation has been added to the values of the Name elements.