This article will cover the Qlik Sense data load editor interface. Note that some features of the interface may look slightly different depending on the product and version you are using.
The data load editor is where you can load and transform data by using code. Qlik Sense uses a simple SQL-like language for scripting.
To get to the data load editor, use the ‘Data load editor’ button in the app top bar. This is the data load editor.
The data load editor includes:
- The app top bar
- The data load editor top bar
- The script sections
- The scripting area
- The data connections
- The script reload output
The app top bar
The app top bar is the top bar visible on every page of the app. See ‘App Overview Interface’ for further information on the top bar.
The data load editor top bar
The data load editor top bar has some general scripting controls.
The first button on the left, ‘Connections’, toggles the data connections sidebar on and off.
Next, the magnifying glass is a search and replace function, similar to a CTRL+F in Excel.
The icon with 2 slashes allows you to comment a section of the script out. Every programming language allows the entry of comments in some shape or form. In Qlik Sense, to comment out a line, you can add ‘//’ at the start of the line. If you select a few lines of code, you can hit this button and it will add the ‘//’ at the start of each of those lines for you.
The next 2 buttons shift your code left and right if you select the code and press them. This is a quick way to keep your code tidy by indenting it where appropriate.
The question mark icon toggles help mode on and off. When the help mode is toggled, the syntax is highlighted with hyperlinks. These hyperlinks take you to the relevant part of the Qlik help site.
On the right, there are the undo and redo buttons which apply to the scripting screen.
Next along is the ‘Debug’ button which brings up the debug panel at the bottom of the screen.
The debug panel has 3 sections which can be toggled on and off using the buttons at the top of it. The ‘Output’ shows the last reload log. The ‘Variables’ section shows the variables in the app. The ‘Breakpoints’ section shows breakpoints found throughout the app script. There are also the options to reload the data by limiting the number of records.
The final button in the top bar is the ‘Load data’ button which will execute the whole script when you click it.
The script sections
The ‘script sections’ sidebar is a way to organise the app script. By default, the section called ‘Main’ is created. This contains the app’s global settings, such as the currency, date format, time format and locale. You can edit these settings as needed.
You can then write your script below this code. But you can also create new, blank pages for writing code on. Clicking the ‘+’ button will create a new section. You can create as many as needed, rename them and drag them up and down to change the section order. Note that when you execute the script, it will run through ALL the sections. It will read the sections from top to bottom. Think of them as pages in a Word document – they have to be in order that you would want them to be read i.e. executed.
The scripting area
The scripting area is where the code is written. You can toggle between your script ‘sections’ by using the left sidebar.
The data connections
The right sidebar contains the available data connections. There is also a button to ‘Add data from data catalog’ (Qlik Cloud only). See ‘Bringing Data into Qlik Sense’ for further information on how to import data into Qlik Sense.
The script reload output
Clicking the ‘Output’ button will toggle a window at the bottom of the screen containing the log of the previous data reload in this session. This is the same log that you can see in the debug panel.
