Access values from neighboring cells in Diadem XTable

[carowjp]

Hello,

Can anyone please help me understand how to access values in neighboring cells in the XTable EventValSet event?

Sub XTable1_EventValSet(ByRef This, Row, Col, ByRef Cell) 'Created Event Handler

  Select Case Col    
    Case 1
      neighbor2 = This.Columns(2).Cell.Text  'note this is pseudo code...how do you properly address an adjacent cell?
    Case 2
      neighbor1 = This.Columns(1).Cell.Text
  End Select

End Sub

 This code is for discussion purposes...I couldn't find a way to do it.

thanks,

Jim

[jallen88]

Jim,
Thanks for posting this. I've been looking into this for an answer, but have yet to come up with a direct way to reference the value using the XTable interface. I'm still looking into this, but it does not appear there is a very direct way of doing this.

Alternatively, since in an XTable you tell it where to get the data, you could always use the Row and Column indices returned from EventValSet to index the original data source, particularly it's neighbor (row +- 1).

An additional method would be to use a Table (if you do not have a specific reason why you need to use an XTable). The Table object has a Cells(row, col) property that you can use to get neighboring values (row +- 1).

[jallen88 · Accepted solution]

Kevin,
I contacted R&D about this question, and they offered some very useful answers.

The first thing we have to understand is that the XTable does not store any values. This allows XTables to have very high performance, even for large datasets. Because of this, there is no built in way to access neighboring (or arbitrary) cell values. We are limited to what we receive in the event handlers since the XTable is an event-based structure.

Alternatively, we can write our own class that implements the XTable interface. In this manner, we have the ability to reuse the EventValGet Handler in the EventValSet Handler to access arbitrary cell values. Our new class must implement all cell properties which are accessed in the EventValGet code, but there are not too many, so this would not be unreasonable. An example is provided here:

class MyNewCell
  Public Text
end class

Sub XTable1_EventValSet(ByRef This, Row, Col, ByRef Cell) 
  Dim oCell
  Set oCell = new MyNewCell
  
  Dim neighbor
  Select Case Col    
    Case 1
      call XTable1_EventValGet(This, Row, Col + 1, oCell, false)
      neighbor = oCell.Text  'note this is pseudo code... get adjacent cell in line above
    Case 2
      call XTable1_EventValGet(This, Row, Col - 1, oCell, false)
      neighbor = oCell.Text
  End Select
  
  msgbox neighbor
  
End Sub

Sub XTable1_EventValGet(ByRef This, Row, Col, ByRef Cell, IsInputCell) 'Erzeugter Event-Handler
  Cell.Text  = Row & "-" & Col
End Sub

It should be noted that while this is a workaround, it goes against the XTable design rules.