concat two fields in choiceLabels of dropdown

Hi paolos, one solution would be "choiceLabels: apply(concat(_, " ", _), merge(local!dataassets.data.manufacturer, local!dataassets.data.model))"

Thank you Josh! It works like a charm!

Another solution could be to create a database view that retains the asset ID, but concatenates the Manufacturer and Model labels.

This would be a bad solution. The task is about to present some user format and it should be done as close to the user as possible (presentation layer vs persistence layer). The database view with this particular format cannot be reused for some other format, you'll need to create more columns.

I know this is an old thread now, but for the record, with the advent of Appian 17.2 and the new "a!forEach()" function, the previous best solution (per Josh) is now replaced with a far simpler and more elegant option.

This would do it for you:

choiceLabels: a!forEach(
  local!dataAssets.data,
  fv!item.manufacturer & " " & fv!item.model
)

You could also use concat() rather than the ampersands... personal preference, though :)

Oh and... keyword syntax!!

Personally, though concat() was required for the old apply() solution, and can save some clutter when the number of parameters grows, I find the & operator to be a lot less cluttery / more easily readable when there is only a small phrase to stitch together. But as you said, personal preference.

Also - for me, I'm almost always too lazy to use keyword syntax in the case of system utility rules like apply() or even a!forEach when there is a finite and tightly defined number of parameters (2), which will almost certainly be guaranteed to never grow. Do you find there's anything to gain using it for a!forEach()? I'm open to being convinced, but have never felt the need myself. I do use it basically everywhere else applicable (SAIL components, expression rules, etc), though.

I've got into the habit of using keyword syntax for any a! namespaced function, but for any fn! namespaced function I don't usually bother as it seems a little overkill for those functions...

I guess the important thing is consistency - so if , as in that example, the a!dropDown function is written with keyword syntax, I'd continue with keyword syntax for a!forEach.

I can agree with that - and then of course to make things more confusing, several primitive functions break if you try :P (I'm not sure what exact subset of functions does this, but it's true for several i've encountered, which always caused frustration if trying to use apply(), etc).

Apply definitely doesn't support keyword syntax as you say, but I cant recall another that doesn't - reduce, maybe? Either way I guess we should be using a!forEach now anyway! :)

it's a bit odd because, for example, one generally uses a!save() in a lot of places but it gets tiresome putting target and value in every time - a!save feels almost like a "primitive" function like apply or concat, but is namespaced as a! so is really categorised in the same group as a!textField... the same can be said of a!forEach or a!flatten, they feel primitive but are categorised as above. Difficult one!

Actually thinking about it, we should just use keyword syntax everywhere since there's now typeahead for the function parameters!