8.11.1 Creating External Reference Files

Owned by Jenni Wallin
Last updated: May 08, 2023 by Former user (Deleted)

In the External Reference Profile you may specify a properties file that contains the External Reference values.

Note!

The Properties file should reside on the Platform Container host.

If you are using characters encoded with something other than iso-8859-1 in your property file for External References, the property file has to be converted to ASCII by using the Java tool native2ascii. For further information about using native2ascii, see the JDK product documentation.

If you have a large number of external references, this may impact the workflow startup time. It is therefore recommended that you do not exceed 1000 external references per file. If you require a number greater than 1000, split the references across multiple files and profiles.

Typical Format

A properties file contains key-value pairs. The typical format of a properties file is:

Key1=Value1 
Key2=Value2 
Key3=Value3

The Value data type can be: a string, a boolean, a password or a numeric value. Boolean values can be represented by true, false, yes, or no, and are not case sensitive.

Password values must be represented by a string that has been encrypted by the command mzsh encryptpassword.

If the file contains two or more identical keys with different values, the last value is the one that is applied.

Add a slash ("\") to continue the value on the next line. If the value is a multi-line string use ("\n\") to separate the rows.

key1=PrettyLongValueThat\
ContinuesOneTheSecondLine
key2=north\n\
center\n\
south

Advanced Tab Properties Format

When you want to use the file for configuration of advanced tab properties in workflows, use the format below.

key1=name.of.property1\=value1\n\
  name.of.property2\=value2\n\
  name.of.property3\=value3

For an example of using an External Reference with advanced tab properties, see 9.36.2.1 Hadoop FS Collection Agent Configuration

Note!

The  "=" characters between property names and values must be escaped.

Next:

8.11.2 External Reference Profile Configuration