How can I output a comma separated string of values with opneTBS

Question

using openTBS (in the SugarCRM plugin MailMergeReports) and I have the following in my Word template.

[a_sub5;block=w:p;nodata] No States
[a_sub5;block=w:p][a_sub5.name]

This works fine as far as it goes - it outputs a single state name per line - which is fine when the data only has a few states.

The problem is I want it to output the list of states as a comma separated string rather than 1 state per line. I have tried multiple options with no luck! Is this not possible to do? or am I just missing the obvious syntax needed to accomplish it.

Note: because I am using TB via a 3rd party plugin to SugarCRM CE I do not have ready access to the PHP code. I need a solution that can be accomplished just within the template specification.

Answer 1

If you had no the nodata section, you could try with [a_sub5.nom;block=!w:r], but this would add an extra coma at the end of the list. This doesn't work since you have the nodata section because the 2 TBS sections are not continuous, thus it will produce an invalid XML.

My advice is to format your list at the TBS side, then merge it into the template :

PHP :

$list = array_column($data, 'name');
$list = implode(', ', $list);
if ($list == '') $list = "No States";
TBS->MergeField('a_sub5', $list);

Template:

[a_sub5]

If is a sub-block, then you can use a onformat custom function for making the list.