I want the Run button on my html page to launch one of two reports, depending on user selection. I think the most elegant method would be to use JavaScript to change the ibif_ex tag value in the XML Request line. However I'm a newcomer to XML, and my readings on w3schools yesterday didn't give me enough info to figure out a way to accomplish this. I'm sure some of you folks have done this before--suggestions, please?

quote:

n button on my html page to launch one of two reports, depending on user selection.

Richard,

I am not sure if I am understanding your question properly. Why don't you have the RUN button point to a fex and from there based on your selection you can branch out to execute one of the other two focexec?

Yes Sayed, I could do that--in fact, I have a fex set up to do exactly that, as my fallback. It just seems clunky to me, and I wanted to learn to manipulate the XML request lines with JavaScript, if possible.

From my personal JavaScript library, a function that replaces the value of an amper parameter in a string. The string is usually a URL that is a WebFOCUS call. You call the function passing the URL, the parameter name and the new value, so in your case it would be fnReplaceParmValue(yourURL,'IBIF_ex','newPgmName');

// Function to replace the value of a selected WebFOCUS Parm with another value
function fnReplaceParmValue(vURL,vParm,vValue)
{
vParmString = '&' + vParm + '=';

vStringPosition = vURL.indexOf(vParmString);

// If the parm does not exist in the string, simply add it to the end of the string
// else insert the new value ito the string
if (vStringPosition == -1)
  {
  vNewURL = vURL + vParmString + vValue;
  }
else
  {
vNextParmPosition = vURL.indexOf("&", vStringPosition + 1);

vURLBeforeParm = vURL.substring(0, vStringPosition);

if (vNextParmPosition == -1)
  vURLAfterParm = "";
else
  vURLAfterParm = vURL.substring(vNextParmPosition, vURL.length);

vNewURL = vURLBeforeParm + vParmString + vValue + vURLAfterParm;
  }
/*
alert("Old URL: " + "\n" + vURL + "\n" +
      "New URL: " + "\n" + vNewURL);
*/
return vNewURL;
}

Well, the IBIF_ex variable is located in a form, as are all the other user selections.
So, what you could do is have a piece of javascript examine the user selections and based on that change the value of IBIF_ex.
Something like:
if (document.forms.formname.uservar.value == 'choice') { document.forms.formname.IBIF_ex.value = 'fex1';}

Try it (or something very much like this).
Let me know if it works for you.

Gerard

Richard,

Try something like this in the JS within your HTML page -

function onSubmit () {
  ibif_ex = document.getElementById("IBIF_ex");
  userSel = document.getElementById("what ever your control Id value is for the user selection").value;
  if (userSel == "firstchoice") {
    ibif_ex.value = "firstchoice.fex";
  } else {
    ibif_ex.value = "secondchoice.fex";
  }
  document.form.submit();
}

Just change your submit button to a type of "button" instead of "submit" and then add the code OnChange="onSubmit();" to the button code.

There are many ways to achieve this and this is only one of them. It is a more simplistic method that some but will hopefully remain understandable by you, your colleagues or anyone else who has to support the end result.

T

Francis, GamP, and Tony, thank you all for your replies.

"ibif_ex" is an attribute of the <Request> node in the <Requests> XML document generated by the Dev Studio html page design tool. From my reading, it seems like there should be an easy way to use JS to reference that attribute and its value via the XML DOM--but I'm just not finding it, and it's time to move on, for now. The XML tutorial I'm reading shows how to reference an external XML file that you load into the html page, but the WF XML document is embedded in the html, and the tutorial doesn't cover this eventuality. Someday maybe I'll figure this out, but for now I'm just going to use my clunky fex file to branch to the correct report.

Thank you all anyway...

This can be accomplished using the following code.

// get the xml data
var ibiXML = document.getElementById('ibi_requests');
// get the request object
var request = ibiXML.selectSingleNode("//requests/request");
request.setAttribute('ibif_ex','app/my_new_fex_name.fex');

Of course if you have more than one request object, you will need to select the correct one... //requests/request[@requestId=number]