Mapping Input

PLEASE NOTE: This documentation applies to an earlier version. For the most recent documentation, visit the Pentaho Enterprise Edition documentation site.

Description

This step acts as a place-holder in a Mapping transformation a.k.a. sub-transformation.
It describes the places (0 or more) in the mapping where input is expected to occur.
You can think of this as a special input step that receives data from its parent transformation.

Options

Option

Description

Step name

Name of the step.
Note: This name has to be unique in a single transformation.

The required input fields for this mapping (sub-transformation)

Here you can describe the input fields that are required by your sub-transformation.
At design time this helps you to create the sub-transformation. The fields can be specified using the following options:

Name: the name of the field as it will be known inside the sub-transformation.
Type: the data type of this field.
Length: maximum string length
Precision: maximum number of decimals

Include unspecified fields, ordered by name

In certain borderline case, you not only want the required fields, but all of them. This option allows for this situation.
This is the for example the case if you want to remove certain fields from the stream later on, retaining all other fields.
Please note that during design time, none of these unspecified fields will be available in field picklists etc, since these fields will be available only during runtime, not design time.

Example

You can find the sample described below in your distribution over here:

samples/mapping/Mapping - simple mapping.ktr
samples/mapping/Mapping - use simple mapping.ktr