index() and property() function failure

RE: index() and property() function failure

Jin Pheh — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 19:02:45 GMT

Agreed, along with a specific timeframe around when the change was introduced. Regression testing this is going to be a PITA and (potentially) explains a whole series of "WTF" bugs I've run into over the past several months.

Eg: A similar post about a change in behavior from a year ago is almost certainly associated with the same change. https://community.appian.com/discussions/f/rules/19895/has-the-index-function-changed-recently/77733#77733

RE: index() and property() function failure

Chris — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 19:00:20 GMT

I can agree on the annoyance, it has caught quite a few people by surprise.

I know the documentation was updated recently to be more thorough, but I can reproduce this same behavior on my 21.1 environment - would have to defer to Appian as far as when/if any related functionality might have changed.

RE: index() and property() function failure

Jin Pheh — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 18:55:32 GMT

Hmm.. Right you are Chris - it says so clear as day in the current documentation.

I find it very annoying though because this change was (apparently) introduced in 21.3 and was NOT mentioned in the release notes for 21.3 or any version since.

RE: index() and property() function failure

Chris — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 18:50:30 GMT

This is actually documented functionality for the index() function. When the data is a dictionary, the default is ignored and null is returned.

Utilize a!map to obtain better results:

fn!index(a!map(startYear: 2022), "YogiBear", "999")

fn!index:

Usage considerations

The type of the default value must be same as that of the elements in the array.

When the data is a dictionary, if the index is not found in the dictionary, the default will be ignored and a null value will be returned. Consider using a map instead of a dictionary.