ct4.us

Overview #

A Virtual Field is a computed field whose value is processed using Twig, similar to Layout processing.

Field Type Parameters #

1. Layout – Defines the Twig expression to compute the field value. Example: {{ price * count }} where price and count are field names.
2. Value Storage (optional) – Determines whether the computed value should be stored for future use in search or order by operations. Options:
   • virtual – Default. The value is computed on request and not stored.
   • storedstring – Stores the computed value as a string.
   • storedintegersigned – Stores the computed value as a signed integer.
   • storedintegerunsigned – Stores the computed value as an unsigned integer.
3. Length (optional) – Specifies the maximum number of characters for Stored String values.
   • Default: 255
   • Min: 1
   • Max: 4096

Examples: #

Concatenate First Name and Last Name

{{ (firstname ~ " " ~ lastname) }}

Multiply Price by Count

{{ price * count }}

Generate a Random Number (1000–9999)

{{ random(1000,9999) }}

Create a Unique Project Code

Concatenates "PRJ-" with the first 10 characters of the MD5 hash of the current date:

PRJ-{{ (now|date('Y-m-d H:i:s.u')|md5)|slice(0,10) }}

Calculate the number of days between two dates

More about date formats: https://twig.symfony.com/doc/3.x/filters/date.html

{% set lastdate = date_field2("Y-m-d")|date('U') %}{% set firstdate = date_field1("Y-m-d")|date('U') %}{{ (lastdate - firstdate) // 86400 }}

Dividing by 86400 (seconds in a day) gives the number of days.

Basic usage #

Access the computed value:

{{ FieldName }}

Ensuring Stored Values for Sorting #

To ensure sorting works correctly, you need to store the Virtual Field’s values. You can do this in two ways:

1. Manually updating records – Open and save each record to trigger the value computation and storage.
2. Using the Refresh button – This allows you to refresh multiple records at once, automatically calculating and storing the computed values.

By refreshing the records, you ensure that the values are stored and available for sorting and searching operations.