To reference the dictionary parameter in the File URL attribute of a graph component, this attribute must have the following form: dict:<Parameter name>[:processingType]. Depending on the type of the parameter in the dictionary and the processingType, the value can be used either as a name of the input or output file or it can be used directly as data source or data target (in other words, the data will be read from or written to the parameter directly).

Processing types are the following:

For example, dict:mountains.csv can be used as either input or output in a Reader or a Writer, respectively (in this case, the property type is writable.channel).

Dictionary and Launch Services

If you read file content from dictionary (usually used with Launch Services), your dictionary should be of readable.channel.

If you read text typed by user, your dictionary usually uses string or another data type.

If you write file content to dictionary (usually used with Launch Services), your dictionary should be of writable.channel.

To access the values from the Java code embedded in the components of a graph, methods of the org.jetel.graph.Dictionary class must be used.

For example, to get the value of the heightMin property, you can use a code similar to the following snippet:

getGraph().getDictionary().getValue("heightMin")

In the snippet above, you can see that we need an instance of TransformationGraph, which is usually available via the getGraph() method in any place where you can put your own code. The current dictionary is then retrieved via the getDictionary() method and finally the value of the property is read by calling the getValue(String) method.

	Note
	For further information check out the JavaDoc documentation.

If the dictionary entries should be used in CTL2, they must be defined in the graph. Working with the entries uses standard CTL2 syntax. No dictionary functions are available in CTL2.

For more information see Dictionary in CTL2.