Strict Paths

The Strict Path setting lets you determine if a path doesn’t exist, and can never exist, in the source or if a path is missing from the current data set. By default, each part of the path is assumed to exist. So, if a part of the path is missing from the source data when you run an integration, the integration fails. If some parts of the path don’t need to exist and a missing value is an acceptable result for the path, you can use the strict path operator ? to specify which parts of that path can be missing.

A path can be a variable name, such as x. In this situation, you can specify that a variable is optional by putting a question mark beside it.

In the following example, y has a missing value if x has a missing value. In this example, no exception is thrown.

Copy

Let y = x? + 2;

In complex scenarios, a path can have one or more parts that can be missing. The following scenarios use x.y.z as an example path to illustrate this concept:

Path scenarios
Path	Result
`x.y.z`	If any of `x`,`y`, or `z` doesn’t exist or is missing, an exception is thrown when using this path.
`x.y.z?`	`x` and `y` must exist, but `z` can be missing.
`x.y?.z`	`x` must exist in the path, but `y` can be missing. If `y` exists, `z` must also exist.
`x.y?.z?`	Only `x` must exist in the path.
`x?.y?.z?`	All three parts of the path (`x`, `y`, and `z`) are optional.