Search for	Example	Results
A single word	`cat`	Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats".
A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase.	`"cat food"` (quotation marks)	Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase.

Search for	Operator	Example
Two or more words in the same topic	`AND` `and` `+` (plus symbol) `&` (ampersand)	`cat AND dog` `"cat food"+milk` `"cat food"&"dog food"`
Either word in a topic	`OR` `or` `\|` (pipe)	`cat OR dog` `cat \| dog`
Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase	`NOT` `not` `!` (exclamation point)	`NOT cat` `! dog`
Topics that contain one string and do not contain another	`^` (caret)	`cat ^ mouse`
A combination of search types	`( )` parentheses	`cat + (dog \| mouse)` `cat \| dog + (! mouse)`

Service Management

Develop > Expression Language > Expression Language examples by output type

Expression Language examples by output type

The following examples demonstrate how to construct phrases in Expression Language for different purposes:

Expressions that return a string value

You can construct expressions that return a string value using text functions. For example, the expression ${concat('Error ','message')} returns Error message.

You can construct expressions that return a string value using records and properties. For example, the expression ${entity.Type} returns the type of the current record and ${entity.PhaseId} returns the current phase of the current record.

A property with a value of type Enum is a string value. For example, if the Urgency field is defined as an Enum type field, the expression ${entity.Urgency} returns the value of the Urgency field of the current record as a string.

Note The DisplayLabel property of an Enum value type field returns the localized label based on the current user locale. For example, the expression ${entity.Urgency.DisplayLabel} returns the value of the Urgency field of the current record in the language of the current user locale.

You can construct expressions using the arithmetical operations:

Example 1: ${(13 + 12)/5)} returns 5

The current record may have numeric or date value properties. For example, if there is a property CreateTime that denotes the time the record was created, you can construct an expression ${entity.CreateTime} to return that date value.

Expressions that return a boolean value

The simplest expressions that return boolean values are ${true} and ${false}.

Mathematical expressions using the equals ,not equals, greater than, or less than operators return a boolean value. For example, ${(5+7) > 10} returns true.

You can construct expressions that return boolean values using the match_pattern text function. For example, the expression ${match_pattern('Hello', 'H*o')} returns true. The expression ${match_pattern('Hello', 'H?o')} returns false, because the ? operator indicates a single character, and the * operator indicates multiple characters.

You can construct expressions using entities and properties that return boolean values:

Example 1: The expression ${entity.ApprovalStatus == 'Approved'} returns true if the ApprovalStatus property of the entity has the value Approved; otherwise, it returns false.
Example 2: The expression ${entity.PhaseId != 'Log'} returns false if the process is currently in the Log phase; otherwise it returns true.

For objects of type person, you can construct expressions using the IsPermitted property, which returns a boolean value. For example, the expression ${current_user.IsPermitted('EMS-View-Template(entityType = Request)')} returns true if the current user has permission to view records of type request; otherwise it returns false.

Similarly, you can construct expressions using the Person functions that return a boolean value. For example:

The expression ${is_manager_of(entity.Owner.Id,current_user.Id,2)} returns true if the person who is the owner of the current record is the manager of the person who is the current user; otherwise it returns false.
The expression ${entity.ownedByPerson.is_permitted_to_domain('Database')} returns true if the owner of the current record has permission for the Database data domain; otherwise it returns false.

Expressions that return a record value

The simplest expressions that return record values are ${entity}, which returns the current record itself and ${current_user}, which returns person who is the current user.

You can construct expressions using object properties that return record values:

Example 1: The expression ${entity.Owner} returns the person who is the owner of the current record.
Example 2: The expression ${entity.AffectsActualService.Owner} returns the person who is the owner of the ActualService affected by the current record.

Expressions that return a collection

You can construct expressions that return a collection of record values:

Example 1: The expression ${entity.PersonToGroup.Name} returns the collection of people related to the current record by the PersonToGroup relationship.
Example 2: The expression ${entity.AllStakeholders} returns the collection of all people who are stakeholders of the current record.

Note When entering an Expression Language phrase in a field that is not a plain-text field, the output may be displayed incorrectly. For example, it may contain HTML markup tags.

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