I would be very nice to have documentation about parameter settings in dsconfig.txt
There’s no GUI to maintain them all, so it would be very helpful if there was a place to find out every parameter role / value / ecc.
Neotheone 
(BOB member since 2007-03-27)
I have played for quite some time with the new ideas.sap.com page and we now started to use it. So I went through this thread here and added all I found important and big enough.
Please login to this page using your SMP account (preferred) or by creating a new login and vote for each feature you like, add comments, submit your own ideas.
Important for me is to distinguish between bugs, goodies and features. For example: “trace log should have links to the different pages”. Is it a feature? Well, yes, but do we want to flood the ideas place with things so no one can see the important ideas anymore? No. It is rather a goody if not a bug. I am still trying to get a feel for it. Later, when the navigation gets more solid, we can start adding smaller things as well.
I will add my ideas later the week, reveal some of the internal discussions we had and would like to get your votes/comments on.
Other items of this thread I rephrased or merged or ignored as they have been implemented in the meantime, e.g. undo, joins, …
PLEASE USE THE SYSTEM AND VOTE!!! If it is not used, the initiative is dead! This is the first time you can submit ideas and stay in the loop regarding the progress. And you can influence directly what will be done.
Werner Daehn 
(BOB member since 2004-12-17)
I couldn’t resist adding some more. 
dnewton 
(BOB member since 2004-01-30)
Nice. I like it. Are you going to close this thread so people have to go to the ideas page? I’m inclined to keep the thread open to encourage quick submissions but it adds extra work for someone.
eganjp (BOB member since 2007-09-12)
I would leave it open so we can discuss.
Werner Daehn (BOB member since 2004-12-17)
I’ve recently found that if you make the second parameter of the substring command negative, the function starts from the end of the string.
i.e. substr( ‘some text’, -4, 4) returns ‘text’. I’m using Data Services 12.2.1.3 but I’m told it is availble in earlier relaeses.
Nemesis 
(BOB member since 2004-06-09)
I like to see and use functions that have obvious intentions. Using a negative value in the substr function isn’t always obvious, while a right() function would be.
eganjp (BOB member since 2007-09-12)
I agree, it’s ceratinly not intuitive. I only found it by accident. Also, if you do use a negative number in parameter 2, you can have any value you like in parameter 3 as long as it’s longer than the string you are attempting to retrieve 
Nemesis (BOB member since 2004-06-09)
I noticed that the ideas.sap.com site that Werner is using for enhancement requests is a beta version. Does that mean we can suggest changes?
The search functionality from the initial page is pretty lousy. If you search on a string it searches all of the sub-boards not just the “SAP BusinessObjects Data Services” board. Once you do a search you can get to the “More options” to specify the board but that’s extra steps.
eganjp (BOB member since 2007-09-12)
Werner Daehn (BOB member since 2004-12-17)
Thanks for that - if that’s really the way it is supposed to work (don’t want to be caught with my pants down halfway down the project!) … then Werner, could you please get the documentation updated? 
ErikR 
(BOB member since 2007-01-10)
I found the functionality as there is an example using a negative number in the technical manuals. I’ve just gone and re-read the ‘substr’ entry and the description of the ‘start’ parameter does state the following:-
If start is negative, the function counts characters from the end of input_string.’
So you’re probably good to go. Though it would be good to get Werners comments for absolute confirmation :?
Nemesis (BOB member since 2004-06-09)
Me? I once was talking to one of our high high managers about functions missing in DI, things like translate or modulo. Just so that he responded with, modulo, that’s not a function, that’s an operator: try 12 % 5 = 2.
Since then I am very careful with stating that functions are lacking a certain - well - functionality. Btw I had the substr_right() function on my list of missing ones, thanks for letting me know…I’ll better remove it before people laugh again.
Werner Daehn (BOB member since 2004-12-17)
If people laugh - I would just point out to them that using a negative value to achieve a substr_right or substr_rev function is not a standard normal software developers are used to.
But it is mentioned in the reference guide (duh on my part) - I just never expected it to work like this
UPDATE: Werner, I’m sorry - I got confused. I didn’t mean substr but INDEX. I want to be able to locate the position of a string, starting from the END of the text I’m searching.
If Substr can do this by using a negative value - then it would be very consistent to also have INDEX work the same way. But the reference guide doesn’t mention this at all:
ErikR (BOB member since 2007-01-10)
I’ve just tried using negative values for the ‘index’ function. Data Services ignores the minus sign and the value and helpfully assumes that you mean ‘1’.
:?
I’m guessing the ‘substr’ and ‘index’ functions were coded by different teams!
Nemesis (BOB member since 2004-06-09)
Well, this is really up to the Client, if they really follow good naming standards, but I have been to some places, where they have way to many Datastore connections, and there is no easy way to differentiate one DB with another. i.e, Ora vs MS SQL etc they don’t use abbreviation like DS_ORA_ODS
How about having a small ICON (Image) for different Datastore connections, so instead of that existing Blue cylinder have DB Companys or DB logo or something!
data_guy (BOB member since 2006-08-19)
… and other datastores are actually connections to services (JMS queues, web services, etc.)
Maybe for the root-node of a datastore, over on the right-hand side of the windowpane, it could show the datastore type.
dnewton (BOB member since 2004-01-30)
To avoid the complete loss of metadata due to the use of the SQL transform and SQL function it would be helpful if supplmental information could be added to an object. For example, the SQL transform uses table Student. Within the properties of the transform or perhaps the Dataflow I would like to add that table Student is used. This information will be reflected in the View Where Used functionality.
eganjp (BOB member since 2007-09-12)
Put this on the Ideas page and you’ll +1 get my vote.
dnewton (BOB member since 2004-01-30)
Replacing this rather lengthy thread with an updated sticky, pointing to the Ideas page.
Locking this topic.
dnewton (BOB member since 2004-01-30)