Introduction to Expressions

An expression is any valid set of literals, variables and operators that evaluates to a single value. An expression is used to build Filter criteria or a Formula. The resulting value can be a number, a string, a date/time, or a Boolean (Logical: TRUE/FALSE).

The simplest expressions are called primary expressions and refer to the value of a literal, variable, or formula function. These are examples of primary expressions:

• 972 (a numeric literal)
• 'Steve' (a string literal)
• creation_date (a variable value)

Examples

• Primary expressions can be combined with operators--for example, to multiply a variable by a literal value:

amount * 0.02

• Formula Functions can also be included in expressions.

For example:

• ROUND( amount * 0.02, 2) rounds the result of the previous expression to the nearest 2 decimal places:

• TODAY is a formula function that returns the current date