Concatenator

From Fmepedia

Concatenator is a Workbench Transformer.

Table of contents

1 Description 2 Example 2.1 Scenario 2.2 Workspace Description 2.2.1 Notes 2.3 Output

Description

A Concatenator transformer joins together (concatenates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenation)) attributes on a feature. It also permits 'constant' values to be included. Constants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constant) are user defined characters or strings that are the same for every feature.

For example...

Address1  Suite 2017
Address2  7445-132nd Street
City      Surrey
Province  British Columbia
PostCode  V3W 1J8

Constant1 ,

Address =  Address1+Constant1+Address2+Constant1+City+Constant1+Province+Constant1+PostCode 

Address = Suite 2017,7445-132nd Street,Surrey,British Columbia,V3W 1J8

Related transformers are the ListConcatenator and the CoordinateConcatenator.

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Example

The attached workspace shows an example use of the Concatenator transformer.

This workspace requires the FME Sample Dataset (http://www.safe.com/support/onlinelearning/fmesampledata.php) to be installed for it to run correctly.

Scenario

The Concatenator transformer is a natural complement to FME's fanout functionality, as it provides a way by which to fan out by more than one attribute simultaneously.

An FME user has a set of zoning data covering the entire city of Interopolis, and a dataset containing a set of grid squares.

Above: The source data: city grid overlaid on zone data

The user wishes to both tile the zoning data into grid squares and subdivide it up into one Shape file per zone type.

• Tiling the data with a Clipper transformer and fanning it out on the grid square ID (Square1, Square2, etc) is simple:

Above: The zoning data fanned out by city grid

• Fanning out by the zone type (Commercial, Industrial, etc) is also easy enough:

Above: The zoning data fanned out by zone type

• However, to do both fanouts at once requires the grid square ID and zone type attributes to be concatenated together into a new attribute:

Square1-Commercial.shp
Square1-Industrial.shp
Square1-Residential.shp
Square2-Commercial.shp
Square2-Industrial.shp
etc

Workspace Description

Above: The workspace

In this workspace:

• The source datasets are passed into a Clipper transformer; city grid as the clipper, zoning data as the clippee.
• The zoning data is clipped by the grid features and output with the grid square ID attached.
• The grid square ID and zone type attributes are concatenated together to form a new attribute "_fanoutAttribute".
• The destination feature type has a fanout applied using the attribute "_fanoutAttribute"

Notes

• The StringReplacer transformer replaces all instances of the "/" character in zone names. This would cause a problem in the fanout because it would form an invalid file name.
• The City Grid dataset is read first (uppermost in the Navigator pane). This allows the Clipper to be run in the more efficient "Clippers First" mode.

Output

Above: The output. The L28 (L29, etc) part is the grid square ID. The LI (RR, SF, etc) part is the zone type.