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Ternary Operators

Ternary operators allow you to build if/then/else conditional logic within your transforms. Please use the IF function instead.

Note

Ternary operators have been superseded by the IF function. See IF Function.

In the following, if the test expression evaluates to true, the true_expression is executed. Otherwise, the false_expression is executed.

(test_expression) ? (true_expression) : (false_expression)

All of these expressions can be constants (strings, integers, or any other supported literal value) or sophisticated elements of logical, although the test expression must evaluate to a Boolean value.

Usage

Example data:

X

Y

true

true

true

false

false

true

false

false

Transforms:

Transformation Name

New formula

Parameter: Formula type

Single row formula

Parameter: Formula

(X == Y) ? 'yes' : 'no'

Parameter: New column name

'equals'

Results:

Your output looks like the following:

X

Y

equals

true

true

yes

true

false

no

false

true

no

false

false

yes

Examples

Tip

For additional examples, see Common Tasks.

Example - Stock Quotes

You have a set of stock prices that you want to analyze. Based on a set of rules, you want to determine any buy, sell, or hold action to take.

Source:

Ticket

Qty

BuyPrice

CurrentPrice

GOOG

10

705.25

674.5

FB

100

84.00

101.125

AAPL

50

125.25

97.375

MSFT

100

38.875

45.25

Transformation:

You can perform evaluations of this data using ternary operators to determine if you want to take action.

To assist in evaluation, you might first want to create columns that contain the cost (Basis) and the current value (CurrentValue) for each stock:

Transformation Name

New formula

Parameter: Formula type

Single row formula

Parameter: Formula

(Qty * BuyPrice)

Parameter: New column name

'Basis'

Transformation Name

New formula

Parameter: Formula type

Single row formula

Parameter: Formula

(Qty * CurrentPrice)

Parameter: New column name

'CurrentValue'

Now, you can build some rules based on the spread between Basis and CurrentValue.

The most important action is determining if it is time to sell. The following rule writes a sell notification if the current value is $1000 or more than the cost. Otherwise, no value is written to the action column.

Transformation Name

New formula

Parameter: Formula type

Single row formula

Parameter: Formula

(CurrentValue - 1000 > Basis) ? 'sell' : ''

Parameter: New column name

'action'

But what about buying more? The following transform is an edit to the previous one. In this new version, the sell test is performed, and if writes a buy action if the CurrentPrice is within 10% of the BuyPrice.

This second evaluation is performed after the first one, as it replaces the else clause, which did nothing in the previous version. In the Recipe panel, click the previous transform and edit it, replacing it with the new version:

Transformation Name

New formula

Parameter: Formula type

Single row formula

Parameter: Formula

((CurrentValue - 1000) > Basis) ? 'sell' : ((abs(CurrentValue - Basis) <= (Basis * 0.1)) ? 'buy' : 'hold')

Parameter: New column name

'action'

If neither test evaluates to true, the written action is hold.

You might want to format some of your columns using dollar formatting, as in the following:

Note

The following formatting inserts a dollar sign ($) in front of the value, which changes the data type to String.

Transformation Name

Edit column with formula

Parameter: Columns

BuyPrice

Parameter: Formula

NUMFORMAT(BuyPrice, '$ ##,###.00')

Results:

After moving your columns, your dataset should look like the following, if you completed the number formatting steps:

Ticket

Qty

BuyPrice

CurrentPrice

Basis

CurrentValue

action

GOOG

10

705.25

$ 674.50

$ 7,052.50

$ 6,745.00

buy

FB

100

84.00

$ 101.13

$ 8,400.00

$ 10,112.50

sell

AAPL

50

125.25

$ 97.38

$ 6,262.50

$ 4,868.75

hold

MSFT

100

38.88

$ 45.25

$ 3,887.50

$ 4,525.00

hold