Page Comparison

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

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1. In the repository browser, expand the list of Datasources.
2. Drag the datasource called Rating and Billing into your model.
3. In your model, hover your mouse pointer over Rating and Billing and click 

   Insert excerpt
   _tables _tables nopanel true

   . PhixFlow displays a list of the tables available in this database. You can resize the list to make it easier to browse.
4. Right-click on SOURCE_PACKAGE_CHANNELS and select 

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   _create_collector _create_collector nopanel true

   . PhixFlow adds a new database collector  to the model, and gives it the same name as the source data table, SOURCE_PACKAGE_CHANNELS. In the settings → property tab → Basic Settings section → Statement Expression, you can see the database query is: 
     select * from SOURCE_PACKAGE_CHANNELS.
5. Hover your mouse pointer over the new database collector, and click 

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   _stream_with_attributes _stream_with_attributes nopanel true

   . PhixFlow adds a new stream to your model and also gives it the name SOURCE_PACKAGE_CHANNELS. In the settings → property tab → Attributes section, you can see that the data has two attributes (columns): Package and Channel.

6. To load the data into the stream, run analysis on this section of the model and check the data has loaded.

   Expand
   title How?
   Hover your mouse pointer over the SOURCE_PACKAGE_CHANNELS stream , click  Insert excerpt _run_analysis _run_analysis nopanel true  then click YES to confirm. When PhixFlow notifies you that the analysis is finished, hover your mouse pointer over the stream again. Click  Insert excerpt _stream_views _stream_views nopanel true . In the drop-down list, select  Insert excerpt _view_default _view_default nopanel true .  PhixFlow displays the data.

   Snapshot of your model and the data you have loaded:

   

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1. Hover your mouse pointer over the Latest Package Update stream and click 

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   _stream_add _stream_add nopanel true

   .
2. In Basic Settings, set the Name to Latest Package All Channels.

3. Drag all the attributes from Latest Package Update to the settings property tab for Latest Package All Channels.

   Expand
   title How?
   Hover your mouse pointer over the stream Latest Package Update. In the context toolbar, click  Insert excerpt _stream_attributes _stream_attributes nopanel true . Phixflow lists the data attributes (column titles) for this stream. Select all the attributes and drag them into the Latest Package All Channels settings → Channels  property tab → Attributes section.

   
   

4. Click 

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   _finish _finish nopanel true

    to save and close the settings property tab.
5. Close the attributes list.

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1. In the model, add a pipe from SOURCE_PACKAGE_CHANNELS to Latest Package All Channels. PhixFlow opens the settings property tab for the new pipe.
2. In the Basic Settings section, set:
   • Name: find_channels
   • Type: Look-up
3. In the Order/Index section, click 

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   _stream_attributes _stream_attributes nopanel true

   . PhixFlow opens two lists of attributes: one list for the source stream and another for the receiving stream. 
4. From the source stream list, on the left, drag PACKAGE into the Order/Index grid.
   
   This tells PhixFlow about the key column in the source stream. Notice that PhixFlow has added a line to the Order/Index grid.
5. From the receiving stream list, on the right, drag Package over the top of the line in the Order/Index grid.
   
   This tells PhixFlow about the matching key column in the receiving stream. Notice that PhixFlow has now added the Index Expression _outPackage. However, we do not want PhixFlow to use _outPackage. because output multipliers are calculated before the output is generated. We need it to use the data on the input.
   This means that the lookup will match records in the reference data (SOURCE_PACKAGE_CHANNELS) where PACKAGE = Package is from the input pipe in.
We must do this, rather than using the value of Package from the output, because we are GOING TO USE the lookup to drive an output multiplier – and output multipliers are calculated before the output is generated.
   
6. In the Order/Index section, double-click the new line that PhixFlow has added. PhixFlow opens the settings property tab for the PACKAGE attribute. Set:
   •  Basic Settings → Index Expression from _out.Package to in.Package.
   • Click 

     Insert excerpt
     _finish _finish nopanel true

      to save and close the settings property tab.
7. Close the attribute list.
8. In the pipe settings property tab, click 

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   _finish _finish nopanel true

    to save and close the settings tab.
9. In the model toolbar, click 

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   _save _save nopanel true

    to save your model, which should look like this:
   

At this point, if you run your model it will find each customer, e.g. C010, and will read that the customer has the News package. It will then look-up the channel for this to find News: Channel 1. But having done one look-up for the customer it will move onto the next customer. 

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An output multiplier tells PhixFlow to process the same record multiple times, each time producing a new record. This is called breaking-out a record. In this case we want PhixFlow to keep processing the same customer record until it has found all the channels. This means our single input record:

becomes multiple output records, like this:

The output multiplier needs to know:

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1. In the model, double-click Latest Package All Channels to open its settings property tab.
2. To create the output multiplier, expand the Multipliers and Filters section and set:
   • Output Multiplier: find_channels.CHANNEL

3. To create a new column for the channel data, expand the Attributes section. Click 

   Insert excerpt
   _add _add nopanel true

    to add a new attribute. PhixFlow opens a new attribute settings property tab. Set:
   •  Name: Channel
   •  Expression: _outputMultiplier
4. Click 

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   _finish _finish nopanel true

    to save and close the settings property tab.
5. In the model toolbar, click 

   Insert excerpt
   _save _save nopanel true

    to save your model.

6. Run the model and view the stream data.
   

   Expand
   title How?
   Hover your mouse pointer over the Latest Package All Channels stream and click  Insert excerpt _run_analysis _run_analysis nopanel true  then click YES to confirm. When PhixFlow notifies you that the analysis is finished, hover your mouse pointer over the Latest Package All Channels stream again. Click  Insert excerpt _stream_views _stream_views nopanel true . In the drop-down list, select  Insert excerpt _view_default _view_default nopanel true .  PhixFlow displays the data.

   There should be 33 records. Here is a snapshot of the start of the data:
   
   Notice that there are now multiple records for each customer.

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