Full or relative path

To access a variable, it is necessary to know which family or subfamily it belongs to.

Let’s create some variables to illustrate this point.

%YAML 1.2
---
version: 1.1

my_family:  # A family

  my_sub_family:  # A family inside an other family

    my_first_variable:  # My first variable

    my_second_variable:  # My second variable

  my_third_variable:  # My third variable

my_fourth_variable:  # My forth variable
...

So we have three variables.

Here the full paths are:

• my_family.my_sub_family.my_first_variable

• my_family.my_sub_family.my_second_variable

• my_family.my_third_variable

• my_fourth_variable

But in calculation it’s often better to use relative path.

relative path

In a calculation definition, a relative path defines the location of a variable relative to the family of the variable where the parameter is calculated. Instead of starting from the root, it uses references like _. (current family), __. (parent family), ___. (sub parent family) and so on.

Relative paths are shorter and portable across custom type.

Now we can define the relative path from the my_first_variable variable:

• _.my_second_variable

• __.my_third_variable

• ___.my_fourth_variable

From the my_third_variable:

• _.my_sub_family.my_first_variable

• _.my_sub_family.my_second_variable

• __.my_fourth_variable

Finally from the my_fourth_variable:

• _.my_family.my_sub_family.my_first_variable

• _.my_family.my_sub_family.my_second_variable

• _.my_family.my_third_variable