Formatting Series in a user defined column. How?

[AnselmD]

Hi,

i have some difficulties using the template language in a user defined column.

I defined a template to a used defined text column. So make it simple, i reduce this example to the part, which i can not solve.

This one works, it formats the series index to 6.1f in square brackets.
{series_index:0>6.1f|[|]: }

Now i want to omit the output if the series index is zero (not empty but zero). I started with this one without formatting and without square brackets.

{series_index:'cmp($,0,'','',$)'}

How can i get the formatting in it? I tried different ways, but i always get template errors.

Anyone who can help me?

Best regards,
Anselm

[At_Libitum]

I've got no idea if this is the 'official' way but I got it to work using it like so

{series_index:0>6.1f:'cmp($,0,'','',$)'|[|]: }

[AnselmD]

Originally Posted by At_Libitum

I've got no idea if this is the 'official' way but I got it to work using it like so

{series_index:0>6.1f:'cmp($,0,'','',$)'|[|]: }

Thank you, yes it works and i think i understand it. 1st format and then run cmp in template program mode and do the prefix, suffix.

I just expand this to something i would like to have (adding series and title):

{series}{series_index:0>6.1f:'cmp($,0,'','',$)'|[|]: }{title}

and i would like to have a seperator, e.g. a colon, if the series_index is zero.

So i changed it to

{series}{series_index:0>6.1f:'cmp($,0,'',': ',$)'|[|]: }{title}

which does not work
TEMPLATE ERROR format: type f requires a decimal (float) value, got :-

I am mixing numbers and strings, which is not allowed. Any good idea?

[At_Libitum]

Not sure if this is what you meant. I'm no template buff either but here's what I came up with. Seeing as the colon was the problem I took it out of there and made it a separate test. But for the life of me I can't get the space to stick other than putting it in front of the title field. It still seems to get swallowed when no series is present.

It just puts the title if there's no series,

if there's a series and series index>0 it formats it with the leadzero and decimal in brackets,
but if the index is zero it puts out nothing.

And last if there's a series to begin with, regardless of index being zero or not, plant the colon.

{series}{series_index:0>6.1f:'cmp($,0,'','',$)'|[|]}{series_index:test(:,)} {title}

I'm sure the real template wizards can come up with a solution that doesn't need the double inclusion

[chaley]

It also isn't clear to me what output you expect in all cases. I took some guesses and came up with the following.

{series}
{series_index:'
	test(
		field('series'), 
		cmp($, 0, '', ': ', finish_formatting($, '0>6.1f', '[', ']: ')), 
		'')
'}
{title}

The template outputs nothing other than the title if there is no series. If there is a series, it outputs only the title if the series index is less than zero, a simple 'colon space' if there is a series but the series index is zero, and [nnnn.n]: if the series index is greater than zero.

Although this template is in template program mode, I would probably use general program mode if I were doing it for myself. GPM can be easier to read and debug. For example, the following is equivalent to the above template

program:
series = field('series');
series_index = field('series_index');
strcat(
	series,
	test(
		series, 
		cmp(
			series_index, 
			0, 
			'', 
			': ', 
			finish_formatting(series_index, '0>6.1f', '[', ']: ')
		), 
		''
	),
	field('title')
)