Velocity email scripting - beginner's guide?

Anonymous · ‎01-05-2017

Hi everyone!

I'm starting to add email scripts in my emails and I'm looking for a guide for beginners, if this exists somewhere. I understand that Velocity is based on Java and that a Java guide could maybe help as well.

I'm trying to display text based on the Postal Code's first character:

#if(${lead.PostalCode}.substring(0, 0) == "H")
  #set($city = "Montreal")
#elseif(${lead.PostalCode}.substring(0, 0) == "M")
  #set($city = "Toronto")
#else
  #set($city = "your awesome city")
#end
${city}

This is raising an error, so I'm guessing the substring shouldn't be used this way. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thomas

SanfordWhiteman · ‎01-05-2017

#if( $lead.PostalCode.startsWith("H") )
  #set( $city = "Montreal" ) 
#elseif( $lead.PostalCode.startsWith("M") )
  #set( $city = "Toronto" ) 
#else 
  #set( $city = "your awesome city" ) 
#end 
${city}

Don't bother with ${formal notation} in #set directives, where it isn't necessary, makes code harder to read, and can break stuff. You don't need {} here.
substring(0,0) means 0 characters starting from index 0. That's not going to match anything.
String objects have a startsWith() shortcut that returns a boolean, so you don't need to create a new string (which is what substring() does).

Also, think about moving to a collection-first approach as I describe here. With Velocity, organization is precious (it's not a particularly easy-to-read language, mostly because of the need to reduce whitespace). So having all your "magic strings" at the top of a script is helpful. Like so:

#set( $pcInitialToCity_xref = {
  "H" : "Montreal",
  "M" : "Toronto",
  "" : "your awesome city"
} )
#set( $pcInitial = $lead.PostalCode.substring(0,1) )
#set( $city2 = $pcInitialToCity_xref[$pcInitial] )
#if( !$city2 )
  #set ( $city2 = $pcInitialToCity_xref[""] )## default
#end
${city2}

In this case, I do use substring() because I need that single-character string to do a property key lookup.

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