Attribute present, but operators identify as error.

bgh

I have a dataset I am reading in from a SQL database.  One of the attributes returned, 'datetime_aired' is passed through a Date to Numerical Operator, where I retain the original value (I am converting it to minutes to epoch and the new value is called datetime_aired_minutes).  I recieve the error that 'datetime_aired' is missing in the example dataset, even though I have confirmed that datetime_aired is defined as a date_time, and datetime_aired_minute is defined as an integer.


While I get results and I have datetime_aired in my resulting dataset - the error seems to prevent me from using datetime_aired or datetime_aired_minute in later  blocks.

#1. I thought that if an error identified something as missing that the procedure would fail.  What is going on, and how can I get access to datetime_aired as inputs for later in my procedure?

Code for my Date to Numerical Operator is below.  Read Database is omitted (believe me - datetime_aired is returned and is defined as a date_time).  I am running 5.3.008.

      <operator activated="true" class="date_to_numerical" compatibility="5.3.008" expanded="true" height="76" name="Date to Numerical" width="90" x="179" y="120">
        <parameter key="attribute_name" value="datetime_aired"/>
        <parameter key="time_unit" value="minute"/>
        <parameter key="minute_relative_to" value="epoch"/>
        <parameter key="keep_old_attribute" value="true"/>
      </operator>

Marco_Boeck

Hi,

the metadata is there to help you when designing a process, however it is not impeccable and it is of no interest when actually executing the process. That is because sometimes the metadata is not there for various reasons, for example it might be too costly to retrieve it or it might simply be impossible to see the result without actually executing the process. So any errors that show up during proces design only indicate potential problems. I don't have your process so I don't know what's wrong, but in any case you can continue to use the attribute (if it is there when executing the process) by manually typing its name into operator parameters and ignoring the related metadata error.

Regards,
Marco