2019.2

By default, the user preferences are set to the system preferences. These user preferences
become the default format values for any newly created data mapping configuration. To change
these preferences, select Window > Preferences > DataMapper > DataMapper default
format (see "DataMapper preferences" on page832).
Data format settings defined for a data source apply to any new extraction made in the current
data mapping configuration. These settings are made on the Settings pane; see "Settings
pane" on page341.
Settings for a field that contains extracted data are made via the properties of the Extract step
that the field belongs to (see "Setting the data type" on page295). Any format settings specified
per field are always used, regardless of the user preferences or data source settings.
Note
Data format settings tell the DataMapper how to read and parse data from the data
source. They don't determine how these data are formatted in the Data Model or in a
template. In the Data Model, data are converted to the native data type. Dates, for
example, are converted to a DateTime object. How they are displayed in the Data Model
depends on the current operating system's regional settings.
Extracting data
Data are extracted via Extraction steps into fields in the Data Model. This topic explains how to
do that. Fields can also be filled with other data: the result of a JavaScript or the value of a
property. To learn how to do that, see "Fields" on page291.
Before you start
Data source settings
Data source settings must be made beforehand, not only to make sure that the data is properly
read but also to have it organized in a record structure that meets the purpose of the data
mapping configuration (see "Data source settings" on page250). It is important to set the
boundaries before starting to extract data, especially transactional data (see "Extracting
transactional data" on page260). Boundaries determine which data blocks - lines, pages,
nodes - form a record in the source data. Data that are located in different records cannot be
merged into a single record inside the record set that is the result of the extraction workflow.
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