AttributeFileWriter

Writes the contents of an attribute to a text or binary file.

Typical Uses

Writing files mid-workspace that contain the value of an attribute
Replacing a writer where the desired content is stored as an attribute
Writing images that have been stored as blob attributes
Writing coordinate system information to a file
Writing text lists of attribute values

How does it work?

The AttributeFileWriter receives any type of feature and writes the contents (value) of a specified attribute to an external file.

A Target Filename and encoding type must be specified. File names may be provided explicitly or by attribute value, expression, user parameter, or conditional value. If a target file already exists, it may be overwritten or appended to.

The attribute value and target file may be text or binary. A variety of encoding choices are available for text files. Binary files should be designated as Binary (fme-binary), as the transformer writes it as-is and will simply preserve the attribute contents as a Blob.

Examples

Example: Writing a text file appending values from multiple features

Usage Notes

When writing any binary file types, ensure that Target File Encoding is set to Binary (fme-binary).
Full path names can be created from existing attribute values by using the Text Editor to create an expression.
The most common text encodings are Windows Latin-1 (windows-1252) and Unicode 8-bit (utf-8).
If you are unsure of the encoding used by the attribute, the Feature Information window in the FME Data Inspector will often help (see image in previous example)

Configuration

Input Ports

Output Ports

Parameters

General

Editing Transformer Parameters

Using a set of menu options, transformer parameters can be assigned by referencing other elements in the workspace. More advanced functions, such as an advanced editor and an arithmetic editor, are also available in some transformers. To access a menu of these options, click beside the applicable parameter. For more information, see Transformer Parameter Menu Options.

Defining Values

There are several ways to define a value for use in a Transformer. The simplest is to simply type in a value or string, which can include functions of various types such as attribute references, math and string functions, and workspace parameters. There are a number of tools and shortcuts that can assist in constructing values, generally available from the drop-down context menu adjacent to the value field.

How to Set Parameter Values

Dialog Options - Tables

Transformers with table-style parameters have additional tools for populating and manipulating values.

Table Tools

Reference

Processing Behavior	Feature-Based
Feature Holding	No
Dependencies	None
Aliases
History

FME Community

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Search for all results about the AttributeFileWriter on the FME Community.

Examples may contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver and/or the Open Government Licence – Canada.

Source Attribute	Name of the attribute whose value will be written out to a file.
Target Filename	The name and location of the file to be written. It may be specified explicitly or by attribute value, expression, user parameter, or conditional value.
If Target File Exists	Specifies the action to take if the target file already exists. Overwrite file: Replace the existing file. Append to file: Add the current value to the end of the existing file. Note that when appending to a text file, you may want to add a special character (newline or carriage return) to the attribute value prior to the AttributeFileWriter.
Target File Character Encoding	The character encoding of the target file. The default encoding is System default (fme-default). Note that binary files must be specified as Binary (fme-binary) regardless of type.

String Functions	These functions manipulate and format strings.
Special Characters	A set of control characters is available in the Text Editor.
Math Functions	Math functions are available in both editors.
Date/Time Functions	Date and time functions are available in the Text Editor.
Math Operators	These operators are available in the Arithmetic Editor.
FME Feature Functions	These return primarily feature-specific values.
FME Parameters	FME and workspace-specific parameters may be used.
Creating and Modifying User Parameters	Create your own editable parameters.