Global Variables in Second Pass

Content of api.global survives between executions of both 1st and 2nd pass (i.e. dirty pass). But given that the second pass is a whole new JST, the global variables are persisted between the 2 passes, where the persistence is done in JSON.

So if you have a complex object (such as a 'Filter') and you store it in a global variable, the following applies:

• Such variable can be retrieved from the global cache as a 'Filter' object only as long as you are in the first pass.

• During the second pass, if you retrieve it, you will get the JSON representation of this object. Accessing the key of a map stored as a global variable in the second pass is done using the syntax:

  api.global.variable.map[(key)]

Global variables are very useful to persist information:

• Between elements within execution of a logic.

• Between executions of a logic for a set of items (i.e. PG, PL, ...) if api.retainGlobal = true is called.

This 'retainGlobal' also works for making use of global variables during executions of both 1st and 2nd pass (i.e. dirty pass).