Hi all together,

I struggle a lot with the following problem:
I try to prefill certain attributes with the value of exactly the same attribute in the last entry made in the same logbook.

I know I have to go with Preset, tried a view hours and searched the forum but i didn't find a thing. Am I overlooking a flag, an option or whatever, or is there just not such a functionality (which I dont believe)?

I thought about:
Preset Test_Attribute = $Test_attribute
Preset Test_Attribute = Re:$Test_attribute
Preset Test_Attribute = $shell(Command to somehow get last entry and this attributes value)
Not succesful though.

I would be very thankful for help, thanks in advance.

Nope, there is no way to acces the last value of an attribute. Sorry.

Stefan

Sorry Stefan, but it is possible as you have the scripting ability.

The idea is to use "Preset Test_Attribute = $shell(script_to_get_the_last_entry)", where the script asks elog about the details and parses them.
The problem here is, that the elogd already is working to resolve the click on "new entry" request (or similar) and the script can't call elogd until the page is delievered, what is to late.
(If it would, the elogd will hang.)

So the script either has to directly parse all the entry.log files in the logbook folder or you need a second elogd running, which can answer the request from the script.
This second elogd could run on a different port and it doen't need to be public as it only answers internal requests and could use the same config as the "primary" elogd.
My idea for the script uses the python elog module to establish the connection and do the parsing.

I hope this helps as a workaround.
Best wishes,
Sebastian

Hi Stefan, hi Sebastian,

thank you for your help. Ok I see its not that simple.

Is there maybe a way of executing a Script on submitting, writing the values of the Attributes into an temporary file and loading the values from this file via a preset shell script when opening a NEW entry?

Best wishes & thanks in advance

That would actually be my recommendation. There is a "execute new" which you can call when submitting a new entry.

Stefan

Thank you very much.

So far I testet all functionalities and scripts to reach my goal. I will post a dummy of the solution later on for future purposes.

Best wishes 

I am glad, we could help.

I can see a caveat in the recommendation.
By having "Execute New = echo $attrib > /path/last_attrib" and "Preset attrib = $shell(cat /path/last_attrib)" as the most simple construction.
But there are cases, where /path/last_attrib can get out of sync with the elog by e.g. editing or deleting the last entry, which is the most likely one to edit or delete.

I am aware, that you can make the logic more complex to fix this issue,
but basically you have the same information stored in two locations and you have to keep them in sync for the system to be reliable.
I am not sure, if it will be more hassle to construct a script/config system to keep them in sync or to find a solution which gets the information from the elog database.