SQL warehousing — Continue operators

The continue operator is used inside an iterator operator to start the next iteration in the loop even when an activity in the iteration loop fails. The functionality of this operator is similar to the continue statement in the Java programming language.

Like the end operator, the continue operator has one input port and no output ports.

Inside an iterator loop, when the activity fails, the error path of that activity is executed (if the activity has an error path), and then the loop ends. However, if you want to continue iterating, then you can connect the continue operator to the on-failure path of that activity.

Example

The control flow below uses a continue operator on the on-failure path of the file wait operator.

Figure 1. Control flow illustrating the use of a continue operator

Figure shows the complete control flow that uses the continue operator.

The iterator loop repeats for each file name specified in a comma-delimited text file. The file wait operator checks whether the file exists at a specific location on your computer. If the file name specified in the text file does not exist, the file wait operator fails and the execution takes the on-failure path. However, the continue operator on the on-failure path of the file wait operator causes the iterator loop to continue.