Latest Contributions by ShitijMehta

Calculate Value tool is a ModelBuilder specific tool that returns a value based on Python. Examples where you can use this tool include: Passing model variables with static or dynamic values that can be used in the code. Cast data type of an incoming data to make it compatible for the next tool. String manipulation to generate a string that can be used as inline variable substitution. Get a handy list of python functions and their syntax within a model. To understand more, check out this video created by our summer intern, Atreyi Guin.  Addition Resources Examples of using Calculate Value tool  ... View more

In ModelBuilder, you can substitute the value or dataset path of a variable by enclosing the variable name between percent signs (%Variable Name%). Substituting variables in this manner is called inline variable substitution. There are three categories of such variables Any variable existing in a model System variables that are added in the product such as %scratchGDB%, %scratchFolder%, %t% for time or %n% for iteration number Workspace Environments such as %scratchworkspace% or %workspace% Examples of where inline variable substitution can be used includes: In an SQL query when the variable is exposed as a model parameter and the value is unknown until provided by the user. In any tool where there is no direct data type compatibility between an existing variable and a tool parameter. For example, In Calculate Field tool, when the value of the expression comes from a string variable which cannot be directly connected to the expression parameter. In Calculate Value tool where a variable data type can be casted to a different data type before passing it to another tool. In output path using system variables such as %scratchGDB% and %scratchFolder% that point to the project workspace. In output path using ModelBuilder workspace variables %scratchworkspace% and %workspace%, that point to the environment set in the model. In the output name if it needs a current time stamp %t% or an iteration number %n%. To understand more, check out this video created by our summer intern, Atreyi Guin.  Additional resources: Inline variable substitution help ... View more