Using the Variant Formula property

Effective from Teamcenter 8.2, a new BOM line property with a system name of bl_formula and a display name in the English locale of Variant Formula allows you to view and edit variant expressions. To achieve best performance, Siemens Digital Industries Software recommends you reconfigure your list of displayed BOM line properties in structure editor applications by replacing the existing bl_variant_condition property (English locale display name Variant Conditions) with this new property. Teamcenter continues to support the Variant Conditions BOM line property but, to compute the property text value from new style variant expressions, it must convert the new variant expression into the old variant data model. This conversion eliminates the performance and memory footprint benefits of the new variant data model. (If you avoid the computation of the old style variant expression data format in this way, you typically reduce the number of objects in memory by several million).

Note The new Variant Formula property is available only if you enable the new data model. You can edit the new Variant Formula BOM line property in the usual way, by double-clicking the cell to display the Edit Variant Condition dialog window. When you do this, Teamcenter converts the variant expression into the old data model; however, the performance impact is more limited as only data for the selected BOM line is converted. The differences between the old and new BOM line properties are shown in the following table. Old Variant Conditions property New Variant Formula property English locale display name Variant Conditions Variant Formula Internationalization property name key bl_variant_condition bl_formula Operator precedence and associativity All Boolean operators have the same precedence. All operators are left-associative, that is, A OR B AND A = (A OR B) AND A. NOT (!) is higher than AND (&); AND (&) higher than OR (|). That is, A OR B AND A = A OR (B AND A). Internationalization value Yes I18N key English value k_variant_op_is_ equal = k_variant_op_not_ equal != k_variant_op_gt > k_variant_op_lt < k_variant_op_gt_eq >= k_variant_op_lt_eq <= k_variant_op_and AND k_variant_op_or OR k_variant_op_not NOT No. Operators are represented by static icons. Equal = Not equal != Greater than > Less than < Greater than or equal >= Less than or equal <= AND & OR | Not ! Decodable text values No. A text value may not always be parsed back into its variant expression. For example, a value name of 4 AND[Item]Fam = val (a 21 character value) would give parsing errors. Also, it may give syntax errors in locales other than English. Yes. A text value may be parsed back into its variant expression. For example, you can enclose a value name of 4 AND[Item]Fam = val (a 21 character value) in single quotes to pause special character interpretation when parsing. The text value uses the following punctuation marks: [ Left square bracket Begin option family name space (owning item ID). ] Right square bracket End option family name space (owning item ID). ( Left parenthesis Begin overriding normal precedence. ) Right parenthesis End overriding normal precedence. ' Single quote Pause or resume interpretation. \ Escape Do not interpret next character. PSE_show_option_ item_prefix preference The owning option item is suppressed if this preference is turned off. The owning option item is suppressed if this preference is turned off and the variant option family is unique in the context of the top-level item revision of a BOM window. PSE_show_option_ family_prefix preference Not supported. The variant option family name is suppressed if the preference is turned off and the variant option value is unique in the context of the top-level item revision of a BOM window.

Note If you use the Variant Conditions property, the owning option item is suppressed if this preference is turned off. If you use the Variant Formula property, the owning option item is suppressed if this preference is turned off and the variant option family is unique in the context of the top-level item revision of a BOM window. Even when the preference is turned off, the owning option item may not be suppressed in certain situations to avoid ambiguity in the resulting formula expression. For example, this may be necessary when an option is defined on an intermediate assembly but is not defined on the top assembly.