Implementing FOR loop in

Informatica PowerCenter

Applies to:
Informatica PowerCenter

Summary
This article briefs about implementing FOR loop in Informatica using Java Transformation.

Author Bio
Author(s): Sukumar Balasubramanian
Company: CIBC
Created on: November 17, 2009

Sukumar Balasubramanian is an experienced Informatica ETL Consultant working with CIBC, Canada. He
has good exposure to Data Integration/Data Warehousing Projects. He is also a key contributor in
informatica-l group of ittoolbox .This is his first technical article in TechNet.

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 3
REQUIREMENT ................................................................................................................................................. 3
SOURCE ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
TARGET .......................................................................................................................................................... 3
SOLUTION OVERVIEW ..................................................................................................................................... 4
SOLUTION STEPS ............................................................................................................................................. 4
SOURCE ......................................................................................................................................................... 4
EXPRESSION TRANSFORMATION .............................................................................................................. 4
JAVA TRANSFORMATION ............................................................................................................................ 5
TARGET .......................................................................................................................................................... 6
OUTPUT ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
ADVANTAGES ................................................................................................................................................... 7
DISCLAIMER AND LIABILITY NOTICE ............................................................................................................. 8

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 Implementing FOR loop in Informatica PowerCenter

INTRODUCTION
This article briefs about implementing FOR loop in Informatica using Java Transformation.

REQUIREMENT
Consider that we are receiving a ‘|’ delimited flat file that contains the sales person’s tour information.

SOURCE

Salesperson Name | Tour from Date | Tour to Date | Place

Sukumar | 20091117 | 20091119 | Chennai
Ram | 20091117 | 20091119 | Bangalore
Sukumar | 20091120 | 20091122 | Bangalore
Ram | 20091120 | 20091122 | Chennai

Our requirement is to generate Tour Table TARGET that contains the following

TARGET

Salesperson Name Date Place

Sukumar 20091117 Chennai
Sukumar 20091118 Chennai
Sukumar 20091119 Chennai
Sukumar 20091120 Bangalore
Sukumar 20091121 Bangalore
Sukumar 20091122 Bangalore
Ram 20091117 Bangalore
Ram 20091118 Bangalore
Ram 20091119 Bangalore
Ram 20091120 Chennai
Ram 20091121 Chennai
Ram 20091122 Chennai

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SOLUTION OVERVIEW
To achieve the above requirement we will be using the Java Transformation available in Informatica
PowerCenter.

SOLUTION STEPS

SOURCE
Delimited Flat File TourInfo.txt
Salesperson Name | Tour from Date | Tour to Date | Place
Sukumar | 20091117 | 20091119 | Chennai
Ram | 20091117 | 20091119 | Bangalore
Sukumar | 20091120 | 20091122 | Bangalore
Ram | 20091120 | 20091122 | Chennai

EXPRESSION TRANSFORMATION

Port Name Data Type Type Expression

Description String(255) I
Salesperson Name String(50) O Use the substring, instr function to
retrieve the sales person name
using the | delimiter.
FromDate String(20) V Use the substring, instr function to
retrieve the ’From Date’ using the |
delimiter.
ToDate String(20) V Use the substring, instr function to
retrieve the ‘To Date’ name using
the | delimiter.
Place String(20) O Use the substring, instr function to
retrieve the ‘Place’ using the |
delimiter.
FromDate_out Date time O To_date(FromDate,YYYYMMDD)
ToDate_out Date time O To_date(ToDate,YYYYMMDD)

Expression transformation is used for retrieving the values from the flat file source and assigns values to
individual ports.

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JAVA TRANSFORMATION

• Drag the java transformation into the Mapping.

• Create the following ports.
Port Name Data Type Type
Salesperson Name String(50) I/O
FromDate String(20) I
ToDate String(20) I
Place String(20) I/O
FromDate_out Date time O
ToDate_out Date time O
TourDate DateTime O

Link the FromDate_out, toDate_out from the Expression Transformation to the From Date and To
Date ports of the Java transformation.
• Under the Java code tab; Import Package tab place the below code:

Import java.util.*;
Import java.text.*;
This is to import relevant java packages.
• Under "On InputRow " tab place the following code

DateFormat formatter ;
formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MMM-yy");
FromDate_out =formatter.format(FromDate);
ToDate_out =formatter.format(ToDate);

Calendar startCal = Calendar.getInstance ( ) ;

Calendar endCal = Calendar.getInstance ( ) ;

Date date_start=new Date(FromDate.longValue());

startCal.setTime ( date_start) ;

Date date_end=new Date(ToDate.longValue());

endCal.setTime ( date_end) ;

for ( Calendar c = startCal; c.compareTo ( endCal ) <= 0; c.add

(Calendar.DAY_OF_WEEK, 1 ) )
{

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 Implementing FOR loop in Informatica PowerCenter

TourDate= formatter.format(c.getTime ());

generateRow();

• The above code snippet uses the java calendar function.

• You can see for loop construction based on the from date and the to date,
• We need to link the salesperson name, Tour Date and Place ports from this java transformation
to the target.

TARGET

Relational Table TOUR

DataType
Description

Sales Person name String

Tour Date Date time
Place String

OUTPUT

Source:
Sukumar | 20091117 | 20091119 | Chennai

Target:

Salesperson Name Date Place

Sukumar 20091117 Chennai
Sukumar 20091118 Chennai
Sukumar 20091119 Chennai

Java transformation takes the ‘from date’ and ‘to date’ as input and a FOR loop is constructed.
For each input row based on the ‘from date’ and ‘to date’ java transformation will generate
multiple rows.
In our case for a single row in source we will be generating 3 rows in target.

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ADVANTAGES

• Java transformation can be used to generate multiple rows based on a condition.

• Normalizer can generate rows based on the ‘Occurs’ clause where we will specify a static number
but if you want to generate multiple rows based on a dynamic value then go for java transformation.

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DISCLAIMER AND LIABILITY NOTICE

Informatica offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type with respect to the content of this software asset,
including any liability resulting from incompatibility between the content within this asset and the materials and services offered by
Informatica. You agree that you will not hold, or seek to hold, Informatica responsible or liable with respect to the content of this software
asset.

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