Glossary

Boolean

In computer science, the Boolean data type is a data type that has one of two possible values (usually denoted true and false) which is intended to represent the two truth values of logic and Boolean algebra.

The Boolean data type is primarily associated with conditional statements, which allow different actions by changing the control flow depending on whether a Boolean condition evaluates to true or false.

Learn more: Data types

Casting

Casting (or transforming) data types is very important throughout all functions provided by JWT.

To be able to set, transform or calculate values it might be necessary to turn a text value to a number, a number or a timestamp to a text, and even individual text or number values to a list.

Learn more: Data types

Comparison operator

Comparison operators for the JWT expression parser can be used in functions like filterByValue() for types Number, Text, Number list, Text list and Issue list.

They can also serve as operators in logical expressions.

Available operators are:

1. =

2. !=

3. <

4. >

5. <=

Conditional operator

The conditional operator 

? followed by :

is a powerful operator to construct conditional expressions.

It basically allows you to construct the following expression: 

IF logicalExpression true THEN  doThis  ELSE doThat.

Example:

%{issue.somefield} = "Red" ? "Color" : "No color"

Learn more: Operators

Custom field ID

In Jira there is no limit on the number of custom fields you can use.

Multiple custom fields can have the same name though. To clearly identify each field, Jira creates a unique custom field ID for each field.

To retrieve the ID (e.g. in order to use it in expressions) the easiest way is to follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your custom fields overview page in the product administration.

2. Click on the actions dropdown next to the field you need the ID of and hover the mouse over one of the actions.

3. Inspect your browser's navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. The last part of the URL is the ID you are looking for.

Field code

You can access, validate, calculate, and manipulate values in work item fields using field codes.

A field code is a unique identifier (key) that can be used in any parser expression. At the same time a field code is a safety feature that makes your expressions immune to custom field renaming.

Learn more: Field codes

Language

When dealing with times and time zones sometimes you need to convert them to text. The text returned depends on the selected language.

Currently JWT for Jira Cloud offers the following language parameters:

RUN_AS_LANG

Returns the language of the selected Run as user.

Language as text:

The most common ISO 639-1 Code locales like the two-letter version "en", or the four-letter version "en-gb" etc. are supported. The string is not case sensitive, so "EN" is valid as well.

You don't have to use the hyphen(-), an underscore will work as well, i.e. "en-gb" is equivalent to "en_GB". If the language is not available (e.g. "english"), an error is returned.

Logical operator

Logical operators in the JWT expression parser are used to build complex logical expressions by linking individual logical terms, i.e "count(subtasks()) > 0 and {system.currentDateTime} - {issue.created} > MONTH"

Available operators are:

1. not

2. and

3. or

4. xor

5. implies

6. xnor

Jira expressions provide the following logical operators:

1. !

2. &&

3. ||

Parsing mode

A parsing mode determines how the JWT expression parser interprets an expression. 

The available parsing modes depend on the context you are using the expression in. 

Learn more: Parsing modes

Precedence

The order of operations (or operator precedence) is a collection of rules that reflect conventions about which procedures to perform first in order to evaluate a given expression.

For example, in mathematics and most computer languages, multiplication is granted a higher precedence than addition.

Thus, the expression 2 + 3 × 4 is interpreted to have the value 2 + (3 × 4) = 14, and not (2 + 3) × 4 = 20.

Regular expression

A regular expression is a sequence of symbols and characters expressing a string or pattern to be searched for within a longer piece of text.

Read more about regular expressions or test your regular expression online.

Seed

JWT for Jira Cloud is capable of processing values from multiple sources (e.g. work items, custom fields etc.). These sources are called seeds.

Depending on the type of input, those are referred to as 

1. Seed issues - for elements of issue lists

2. Seed texts - for elements of text lists (e.g. custom field options, components etc.)

3. Seed numbers - number

If values from a seed source are needed to perform actions, the field codes need to be preceded by the word "seed".

%{seed.issue.summary}

Learn more: Seeds

Sibling

Sibling work items are work items that have the same parent.

Substring

In computer science a substring is a contiguous sequence of characters within a string (text).

For instance, "the best of" is a substring of "It was the best of times".

Temporary field

JWT offers a way to temporarily store and reuse values within the same workflow transition.

These values are stored in temporary text or temporary number fields.

The fields will be cleared once the transition has been executed.

Time zone

Fields of type date and date-time contain a numeric value with the milliseconds elapsed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT.

The number that will be returned by any function using a date or date-time timestamp depends on a time zone (e.g. "GMT", "UTC", "Pacific/Auckland" etc.).

Find a list of all available time zones here. Time zones are being handled as a separate data type, which means you do not have to enclose them in brackets.

Apart from the static time zones, the following time zone constant is currently available in JWT to retrieve a time zone dynamically:

RUN_AS_LOCAL

Returns the time zone of the selected Run as user.

Example using the a static time zone:

dateTimeToString({issue.created}, "UTC", RUN_AS_LANG)

Example using the constant LOCAL to tetrieve the time zone dynamically:

dateTimeToString({issue.created}, RUN_AS_LOCAL, RUN_AS_LANG)

Timestamp

A timestamp is basically a number representing the milliseconds elapsed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT.

Various functions and macros are available to work with timestamps in JWT.

Check out https://www.unixtimestamp.com/ to get more information.

User ID

One central feature of JWT for Jira Cloud is the possibility to update any type of field in your work items.

In some cases you may want to update user related fields which need a user ID as input parameter.  

To retrieve the ID the easiest way is to follow these steps: 

1. Navigate to your site administration user management (available via the cog wheel → Settings → User management).

2. Hover over the user's name you want to grab the ID from, and inspect your browser's navigation bar. The last part of the URL contains the ID you are looking for.

Virtual field

JWT for Jira Cloud is able to retrieve values from so called virtual fields.

Virtual fields, unlike standard Jira fields, such as assignee or summary, are a main feature of JWT and let you access the data you really need.

Most of the virtual fields are read-only, since JWT for Jira Cloud actually calculates their values in the background.

Learn more: Field codes