Table Editor Controls

Basic Table Editor

TableEditor Control elements enable your extension node to access SAS data sets that are accessible by the SAS Enterprise Miner server or that are generated by your extension node's server code. The server code that is required for a TableEditor Control is typically minimal. The essential purpose of the server code is to provide a way for the SAS Enterprise Miner server to identify and track the data sets or files that are to be accessed by the Control. The Control elements also typically provide a way for you to add more sophisticated functionality beyond the minimal requirements.

The following XML code illustrates the most basic configuration of a String Property with a TableEditor Control:

<Property description="write your own description here"
	displayName="TableEditor Control Example"
	name="TableEditor"
	type="String">
	<Control>
		<TableEditor key="COMPANY">
			<Actions>
				<Open name="OpenTable" />
				<Close name="CloseTable" />
			</Actions>
		</TableEditor>
	</Control>
</Property>

This configuration requires a single Control element. This Control element has no attributes. Nested inside this Control element is a single TableEditor element. The TableEditor element has a key attribute. The value of the key attribute is the name of a file key that you register using the %EM_REGISTER macro. In this example, the node prefix is EXMPL and the key is COMPANY, so the name of the table is EMWS.EXMPL_COMPANY.

You also need some code that associates a data set with that key. For example, you might have code in the CREATE action that registers the key, COMPANY, and a SAS DATA step that associates the key with the data set Sashelp.Company:

%em_register(type=data,key=COMPANY,property=Y);
data &EM_USER_COMPANY;
	set sashelp.company;
run;

If you want the table to be available before run time, place the code that associates the data set with the key in the CREATE action. However, in some cases, the table that you are opening with the TableEditor Control is not created until after the node is run. The data set might be created by a process within the TRAIN code. In that case, you could still register the key in your CREATE code, but the code that associates the key with the data set would be in your TRAIN code. If the user attempted to open the table before the node was run, an error message would appear indicating that the table does not exist.

Nested within the TableEditor element is an Actions element. The Actions element associates a block of SAS code with a user action. Inside the Actions element are an Open element and a Close element; both have a name attribute. In your node's main program, you can add code that might look like this:

%if %upcase(&EM_ACTION) = OPENTABLE %then %do;
	filename temp catalog 'sashelp.emext.example_actions.source';
	%include temp;
	filename temp;
	%OpenTable;
%end;

%if %upcase(&EM_ACTION) = CLOSETABLE %then %do;
	filename temp catalog 'sashelp.emext.example_actions.source';
	%include temp;
	filename temp;
	%CloseTable;
%end;

The values of the name attributes correspond to the names of the actions that are executed when the user either opens or closes the table. The following actions occur when the user opens the table by clicking the ellipsis ( ellipses icon

) icon:

The &EM_ACTION macro variable is assigned the value of the Open action (for example, OpenTable) before the server code is processed.
The &EM_TABLE macro variable is initialized; it resolves to the name of the table (for example, EMWS. EXMPL_COMPANY).
The OpenTable action that is specified in the Open element executes before a copy of the table is returned to the client.
A temporary table named WORK.key is created (for example, WORK.COMPANY). This table stores any changes that the user makes to the original table.

The following actions occur when the user closes the table:

The %EM_ACTION macro variable is assigned the value of the Close action (for example, CloseTable) before the server code is processed.
The &EM_TABLE macro variable is initialized; it resolves to the name of the table (for example, EMWS. EXMPL_COMPANY).
The &EM_TEMPTABLE macro variable is initialized; it resolves to the name of the temporary table that contains any changes to the table that the user made (for example, WORK.COMPANY).
The CloseTable action that is specified in the Close element executes.
The permanent table is overwritten by the temporary table so that any changes made by the user are recorded in the permanent table.

You must have at least one named action (Open or Close) specified in the XML properties file for a TableEditor Control. However, you are not required to write any code or to include a call to the action in your main program. When you do not have any code that you want to execute when the table is opened or closed, the Actions, Open, and Close elements act as placeholders.

When implemented, the ellipses icon

icon appears in the Value column of the Properties panel.

When a user clicks the ellipses image

icon, a SAS Table Editor window appears, displaying the table that is associated with the Control.

In this example, the entire table is displayed when the user clicks the ellipses icon

icon and the table cannot be edited. Adding a Column element with nested Column elements enables you to control which variables appear in the table and whether a variable's values can be edited by the user. In the following example, the Control configuration restricts which variables are displayed in the table and enables the user to edit the values of those variables:

<Property description="write your own description here"
	displayName="TableEditor Control Example"
	name="TableEditor"
	type="String">
	<Control>
		<TableEditor key="COMPANY">
			<Actions>
				<Open name="OpenTable"/>
				<Close name="CloseTable"/>
			</Actions>
		<Columns displayAll="N">
			<Column name="DEPTHEAD"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>
			<Column name="JOB1"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>
			<Column name="LEVEL3"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>
			<Column name="N"
				type="int"
				editable="Y"/>
			<Column name="LEVEL4"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>
		</Columns>
		</TableEditor>
	</Control>
</Property>

In the Columns element, the displayAll attribute has a value of N. This indicates that only those variables that are specifically identified by Column elements should appear when the table is opened. Four Column elements are specified. In each Column element, there are three attributes defined as follows:

name — specifies the name of the variable to display.
type — specifies one of four supported types of variables. The supported types are as follows:
- boolean
- String
- int
- double
Note: These values are case-sensitive.
editable — indicates whether the user can modify the variable's values. Valid values are Y or N.

When the editable attribute of a Column element is set to Y, the user can edit the values of the corresponding variable by entering a new value in the SAS Table Editor window.

You can also add Range Control elements to restrict the values that can be used to edit the values in the table. For example, suppose you add a Range Control to the N Column element as follows:

<Property description="write your own description here"
	displayName="TableEditor Control Example"
	name="TableEditor"
	type="String">
	<Control>
		<TableEditor key="COMPANY">
			<Actions>
				<Open name="OpenTable" />
				<Close name="CloseTable" />
			</Actions>
			<Columns displayAll="N">
				<Column name="DEPTHEAD"
				type="String"
				editable="Y">
				</Column>

			<Column name="JOB1"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>

			<Column name="LEVEL3"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>

			<Column name="LEVEL4"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>

			<Column name="N"
				type="int"
				editable="Y">

				<Control>
				<Range min="1" max="3" />
				</Control>

			</Column>
			</Columns>
		</TableEditor>
	</Control>
</Property>

Now when the user tries to edit the N column of the table, they must enter an integer value between the min and max values specified. If they enter a value that is outside of that range, the value of N is set to missing in that row of the table.

Table Editor with Choices

You can also add a ChoiceList Control to restrict the values that can be used to edit the values in the table. For example, suppose you add a ChoiceList Control to the DEPTHEAD Column element as follows:

<Property description="write your own description here"
	displayName="TableEditor Control Example"
	name="TableEditor"
	type="String">

	<Control>
		<TableEditor key="COMPANY">
			<Actions>
				<Open name="OpenTable" />
				<Close name="CloseTable" />
			</Actions>
			<Columns displayAll="N">
				<Column name="DEPTHEAD"
				type="String"
				editable="Y">

				<Control>
				<ChoiceList>
					<Choice displayValue="1" rawValue="1"/>
					<Choice displayValue="2" rawValue="2"/>
				</ChoiceList>
				</Control>
				</Column>

				<Column name="JOB1"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>

				<Column name="LEVEL3"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>

				<Column name="LEVEL3"
				type="String"
				editable="Y"/>

				<Column name="N"
				type="int"
				editable="Y">

				<Control>
					<Range min="1" max="3" />
				</Control>
				</Column>
			</Columns>
		</TableEditor>
	</Control>
</Property>

When the SAS Table Editor window appears and the user clicks on a value in the DEPTHEAD column, a drop-down list appears. The user can edit the value by choosing from the list that contains the values 1 and 2. If users want to edit the value of the N column, they can enter an integer value of 1, 2, or 3. If they enter a value outside of the range permitted by the Range Control, a missing value appears in that observation.

Table Editor with Dynamic Choices

A DynamicChoiceList Control enables you to dynamically populate a choice list rather than hardcoding values in the XML properties file. The following example demonstrates the functionality that this control provides as well as the steps necessary to implement it. There are four steps to implementing this type of Control.

Add a choiceKey attribute to the TableEditor element.
Add a DynamicChoiceList Control to the Column element.
Use the %EM_REGISTER macro to register the value of the choiceKey attribute.
Write code that generates the data set that is used to populate the DynamicChoiceList Control.

The modified Property configuration appears as follows:

<Property description="write your own description here"
	displayName="TableEditor Control Example"
	name="TableEditor"
	type="String">

	<Control>
		<TableEditor key="COMPANY"
		choiceKey="CHOICE">
		<Actions>
			<Open name="OpenCompanyTable" />
		</Actions>
		<Columns displayAll="N">
			<Column editable="Y"
			name="DEPTHEAD"
			type="String">
			</Column>

			<Column name="JOB1"
			type="String"
			editable="Y">

			<Control>
				<DynamicChoiceList/>
			</Control>

			</Column>

			<Column name="LEVEL3"
			type="String"
			editable="Y"/>

			<Column name="LEVEL4"
			type="String"
			editable="Y"/>

			<Column name="N"
			type="int"
			editable="Y">
			</Column>
		</Columns>
		</TableEditor>
	</Control>
</Property>

The TableEditor element now has a choiceKey attribute with a value of CHOICE. The Column element for JOB1 now has a Control element with a nested DynamicChoiceList element. In the CREATE action, the following line of code is added:

%em_register(type=data, key=CHOICE);

Typically, the code that generates the data set that is used to populate the DynamicChoiceList is in the OPEN action. However, it can actually be placed wherever it is most appropriate for the purpose that it serves. In this example, the code is placed in the CREATE action so that the SAS Table Editor is functional when the node is first placed in a process flow diagram.

The data set Sashelp.Company has a variable named Level4. The DynamicChoiceList is populated with the unique values of that variable. The following code generates the data set:

proc sort data=sashelp.company nodupkey out=&em_user_choice(keep=LEVEL4);
	by LEVEL4;
run;

data &em_user_choice(keep=Variable Choice);
	length Variable $32 Choice $32;
	set &em_user_choice;
	Variable="LEVEL4";
	Choice=LEVEL4;
run;

The resulting data set appears as follows:

The key features of the data set are as follows:

The name of the data set is contained in the macro variable &EM_USER_choiceKey, where choiceKey is the value of the choiceKey attribute of the TableEditor element.
The data set has exactly two character variables: Variable and Choice.
Each record of the data set has a value of LEVEL4 in the variable named Variable. LEVEL4 is the value of the name attribute of the Column element to which the DynamicChoiceList element is applied.
Each record contains a unique value in the Choice variable. These unique values are the choices that populate the DynamicChoiceList.

In this example, the NODUPKEY option of the SORT procedure ensures that the values are unique.

The DynamicChoiceList element can be applied to multiple Column elements in a TableEditor Control. In such a case, the data set has a repeated measures structure. That is, suppose that there are k Column elements to which you want to apply a DynamicChoiceList. You still create one data set to populate the k lists. The data set has the following structure:

	Variable					Choice
variable-name_1		value 1_1
variable-name_1		value 1_2
variable-name_1			...
variable-name_1		value 1_N1
variable-name_2		value 2_1
variable-name_2		value 2_2
variable-name_2			...
variable-name_2		value 2_N2
		.						.
		.						.
		.						.
variable-name_k		value k_1
variable-name_k		value k_2
variable-name_k			...
variable-name_k		 value k_Nk

In this example, when the Table Editor window is opened, the user can modify the value for LEVEL4 in any observation by selecting from the list of values that already exist in the data set.

Dynamic Choice List example Table Editor window

You can provide some additional control over how the data is displayed in the SAS Table Editor window by adding whereClause and whereColumn attributes to the TableEditor element. For example, change the TableEditor element as follows:

<TableEditor
	key="COMPANY"
	choiceKey="CHOICE"
	whereClause="Y"
	whereColumn="DEPTHEAD">

The whereClause attribute is redundant, but it is required; it should have a value of Y. The whereColumn specifies the name of a variable in the data set. Including these two attributes sorts the data set by the values of the variable specified in the whereColumn attribute. A drop-down list is added at the top of the SAS Table Editor window. The values in the list correspond to the unique values of the variable specified in the whereColumn attribute and the additional value of All. By default, only observations with a value corresponding to the first value in the list are displayed. The user can then select a different value from the drop-down list; the table is refreshed and the observations that correspond to the new value are displayed. If the user selects All, the entire table is displayed.

Table Editor with Restricted Choices

In the example above, the choices for the variable Level4 were populated using a DynamicChoiceList Control. By adding a single new attribute and modifying the accompanying SAS code, you can take advantage of the hierarchical structure of the SASHelp.Company data set to restrict the values that are used to populate the choices. For example, consider the following modified Property configuration:

<Property
	description="write your own description here"
	displayName="TableEditor Control Example"
	name="TableEditor"
	type="String">

	<Control>
		<TableEditor key="COMPANY"
			choiceKey="CHOICE"
			keyVar="LEVEL3"
			whereClause="Y"
			whereColumn="DEPTHEAD">

			<Actions>
				<Open name="OpenCompanyTable" />
				<Close name="CloseCompanyTable" />
			</Actions>

			<Columns displayAll="N">
				<Column editable="Y"
					name="DEPTHEAD"
					type="String"/>
				<Column name="JOB1"
					type="String"
					editable="Y"/>
				<Column name="LEVEL3"
					type="String"
					editable="Y"/>
				<Column name="LEVEL4"
					type="String"
					editable="Y">
			<Control>
				<DynamicChoiceList/>
			</Control>
			</Column>

				<Column name="N"
					type="int"
					editable="Y"/>
			</Columns>
		</TableEditor>
	</Control>
</Property>

The essential addition to this configuration is the keyVar attribute of the TableEditor Control. In this example, the keyVar attribute is assigned the value of "LEVEL3". This means that when the choices for the variable LEVEL4 are presented for a given row in the table, the choices are conditional on the value of LEVEL3 in the same row of the table. To accomplish this, a table with a hierarchical structure of choices must be generated as follows:

%em_register(type=data, key=CHOICE)

proc sort data=sashelp.company nodupkey
	out=&em_user_choice(keep= LEVEL3 LEVEL4);
	by LEVEL3 LEVEL4;
run;

data &em_user_choice(keep=Variable Choice key);
	length Variable $32 Choice $32 key $32;
	set

&em_user_choice;
	Variable="LEVEL4";
	Choice=LEVEL4;
	key=LEVEL3;
run;

The resulting data set appears as follows:

The key features of the data set are as follows:

The name of the data set is contained in the macro variable &EM_USER_choiceKey, where choiceKey is the value of the choiceKey attribute of the TableEditor element.
The data set has exactly three character variables: Variable, Choice, and key.
Each record of the data set has a value of LEVEL4 in the variable named Variable. LEVEL4 is the value of the name attribute of the Column element to which the DynamicChoiceList is applied.
The data set has a hierarchical structure with the Choice variable nested within the key variable. Therefore, each record contains a unique combination of the key and Choice variables. These unique values are the choices that populate the DynamicChoiceList.

In this example, when the user clicks on the variable Level4 in a row where the variable Level3 is "ADMIN" they are presented with one set of choices:

However, when the user clicks on the variable Level4 in a row where the variable Level3 is "SALES/MARKETING" they are presented with a different set of choices:

Ordering Editor

An Ordering Editor provides a means by which you can display a table to the user and enable the user to change the order of the variables in the table. A simple example of an ordering editor's XML Property configuration is as follows:

<Property
	description="write your own description here"
	displayName="Ordering Editor Control Example"
	name="OrderingEditor"
	type="String">

	<Control>
		<TableEditor key="ORDER"
			isOrderingEditor="Y">

		<Actions>
			<Open name="OpenOrderTable" />
			<Close name="CloseOrderTable" />
		</Actions>

		<Columns displayAll="Y">
			<Column editable="N"
				name="NAME"
				type="String"/>
		</Columns>
		</TableEditor>
	</Control>
</Property>

Notice the two attributes of the TableEditor Control: key and isOrderingEditor. Just as in the other TableEditor Control example, the value of the key attribute must be registered with SAS Enterprise Miner using the %EM_REGISTER macro in your extension node's server code. The isOrderingEditor attribute tells SAS Enterprise Miner that this table editor is, in fact, an ordering editor.

As with other table editors, an ordering editor requires an Actions element and at least one named action nested within it. However, the named action need not have any server code associated with it. You control which variables appear in the table with the Columns element and the nested Column elements. You can have as many columns in the table as you want.

An ordering editor requires minimal server code to make it functional. All that is really required is that you have a table and that the table be registered. For example, you might have server code in the create action that appears as follows:

%em_register(type=data, key=ORDER);

proc contents data=sashelp.company out=&em_user_order(KEEP=NAME);
run;

When the user opens the table editor, the following table appears. The user can select a variable on the left and use the arrows on the right to move the variable to a higher or lower position in the order.

After the user clicks OK and the table is closed, a new version of the table is stored in the EMWS library under the name prefix_key. In this example the prefix is EXMPL and the key is ORDER, so the newly ordered table is stored in Emws.Exmpl_Order.