Placeholders

A placeholder is a word in braces, such as {label}, that Graph Modeler replaces with a value when it builds the graph. They let one piece of text serve many rows: a style can wrap every label in the same markup, and a query can number its rows and clusters. This page lists the placeholders that are built in, says where each one works, and shows how to make your own.

All placeholders are written the same way, {name}, and capital letters do not matter: {Label} is the same as {label}. A placeholder that nothing replaces is left as it was typed, so a mistake is easy to see.

Where placeholders work

Where	Placeholders	Replaced by
The Format of a style on the Styles tab	{label}, {xlabel}, {taillabel}, {headlabel}	The row's own text
Any label or tooltip, and any value in a row's Attributes or a style's Format, a cluster's or the graph's, and native DOT rows	{view}, {project}	The view being drawn, and the project's name
The values a query returns on the SQL tab	{rsc}, {clc}, {scc}, {level}, {step}	A count
The detail query of ITERATE	{id}	The ID being worked on
The queries after a SET PLACEHOLDER line	{name}, for a name you choose	The value you gave it
The file names that Publish writes, and the prefix a PUBLISH line gives	{prefix}, {view}, {version}, {date} and others	Parts of the name

The rest of this page goes through the first five. The file name placeholders have their own table on the Publishing page.

In labels

A style's Format may set a label for the things that use it. If the format has {label} in it, the label of the row goes there. This is how a style puts the same frame around every label, such as a bold word, a bracket or a picture:

shape=box label="Team: {label}"

A row with the label Billing is then drawn as Team: Billing. The four placeholders are:

Placeholder	Is replaced by
{label}	The row's Label
{xlabel}	The row's External Label
{taillabel}	The row's Tail Label, on an edge
{headlabel}	The row's Head Label, on an edge

They can be used in a style's label, external label, tail label, head label or tooltip. They are most useful in HTML-like labels, where a table can hold a picture beside the text:

label=<<table border="0" cellborder="0"><tr><td><img src="server.png"/></td><td>{label}</td></tr></table>>

The view and the project

Two more placeholders work in every label and tooltip, and in the values of the Attributes column and of a style's Format (so URL="{view}.html" works), wherever the text comes from: a row's own Label, External Label and Tooltip, a style's Format, a cluster's label, and the label of the graph itself, which a row with the keyword graph gives. They also work in the DOT that a native row (> in the Item column) writes as it is, so a row with label="{view}" in the Label column titles the graph.

Placeholder	Is replaced by
{view}	The name of the view being drawn
{project}	The name of the project, as shown in the Project name box

They let a graph say what it is showing. A graph row with the label Network map: {view} titles each diagram with its view, and Publish all views writes every file with its own title. The same words are used for the Knowledge Graph, and they are worked out when the graph is drawn, so switching the view changes them at once.

The style preview on the Styles tab has no row to take a label from, so it shows a placeholder as it was typed. The same placeholders are used when the Knowledge Graph is made, so the labels there match the diagram.

In the values of a SQL query

A query on the SQL tab can number the rows it produces, and the clusters it makes. Write the placeholder in any text value of the result, and the number is put there as the rows are made. A {view} or {project} in a value is not replaced by the query; it goes into the row as typed and is replaced when the graph is drawn, so each view shows its own name.

Placeholder	Is replaced by
{rsc}	The position of the row in the results of its statement: 1 for the first, 2 for the second. Each statement starts again at 1. The count carries on across the detail queries of an ITERATE.
{clc}	The number of the cluster. With Cluster1, Cluster2 and deeper columns, a running total of the clusters opened so far, at every level.
{scc}	The number of the subcluster inside its cluster, starting again at 1 in each cluster. With Cluster1, Cluster2 and deeper columns, the number of the cluster among those at its level inside its parent.
{level}	How deep a cluster is, with Cluster1, Cluster2 and deeper columns: 1 for the outermost.
{step}	The number in an ENUMERATE loop, as it goes from START AT to STOP AT.
{id}	In the SQL FOR DATA query of an ITERATE, the ID being worked on.

{rsc} and {step} may be used in any value. {clc} and {scc} are for the cluster columns: Cluster Style Name and Cluster Attributes, and the same two for subclusters. When the clusters are written as Cluster1, Cluster2 and deeper, they work in every cluster column and in the values of the rows as well. Some examples:

SELECT [Task] AS [Item], 'sortv={rsc}' AS [Attributes] FROM [plan$]

Every node gets sortv set to its position in the results, so layouts that sort by it keep the order of the sheet.

SELECT [Name] AS [Item], [Region] AS [Cluster], 'sortv={clc}' AS [Cluster Attributes] FROM [sites$]

Each region's cluster gets sortv set to its own number.

SELECT TRUE AS [ENUMERATE], MIN(CLng([Year])) AS [START AT], MAX(CLng([Year])) AS [STOP AT],
       1 AS [STEP BY], '{step}' AS [Item], '{step}' AS [Label]
FROM [shells$]

One node for each year, from the earliest in the sheet to the latest. The SQL tab says more about ENUMERATE and ITERATE.

The Excel tool's spelling

The Excel tool wrote the three counters between percent signs: %clc%, %scc% and %rsc%. Graph Modeler writes them in braces like all the others, and the old spelling still works wherever the new one does. A script from the Excel tool needs no change, and a project or an exchange file that has the old spelling in its settings is given the new one when it is opened. Use either, but the braces are the form to learn.

Your own placeholders

A line in a SQL script can define a placeholder of its own:

SET PLACEHOLDER year = 2026

From then on, every {year} in the queries after that line is replaced by 2026 before the query is run:

SELECT [Name] AS [Item] FROM [sales$] WHERE [Year] = {year}

This keeps a value that changes, such as the year or the month to look at, in one place at the top of the script. The replacement is plain text, so write the value as the query needs it: 'West' with its quotes for a text value, and without quotes for a number. A later SET PLACEHOLDER with the same name replaces the value for the lines that follow it. Placeholders you define work in queries, not in the values the queries return.