Avoiding coding using purpose-built steps

You saw through the exercises how powerful the JavaScript and Java Class steps are to help you in your transformations. In older versions of PDI, coding JavaScript was the only means you had for specific tasks. In the latest releases of PDI, actual steps appeared that eliminate the need to code in many cases. Here you have some examples of these steps:

• Formula step: Before the appearance of this step, there were a lot of functions, such as the right or left text function, that you could solve only with JavaScript
• Analytic Query: This step offers a way to retrieve information from rows before or after the current row
• Split field into rows: This step is used to create several rows from a single string value
• Add value fields changing sequence: Similar to the Add sequence step, but the sequence value resets each time a value in the list of specified fields changes

Other steps have enhanced their capabilities. For example, the number of available calculations...