Getting number of records in data attached to document

Just answered in the other thread, but I'll repeat it here.

Question was:
How can I know the data source file of a document template that is prepared for data merge?

It seems there is no property in the scripting DOM for this. I'd expect this perhaps with documentPreferences or dataMergePreferences. But no, it's missing.

<DataMerge DataSourceFile="C:\folderName\fileName.txt" />

Hi Ashley,

it seems you cannot reply to this thread for unknown reason:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/cannot-reply-to-post/td-p/10947947

So I am trying a reply to see if something's wrong on the thread in the forum.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Hi Colin,

the other workaround:

Load the data source to a new document and get the range from there.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Hi Ashley,

then I suggest you set recordSelection first to RecordSelection.ALL_RECORDS.

Did not test this, but I hope that the range will adapt.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Hi Brian,

property recordNumber is something else. From my German InDesign on Windows 10:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Hi Ashley,

see into other properties of dataMergePreferences as well:

https://www.indesignjs.de/extendscriptAPI/indesign-latest/#DataMergePreference.html

Set recordSelection to RecordSelection.RANGE

And exploit property recordRange that returns a string.

var doc = app.documents[0];
doc.dataMergeProperties.dataMergePreferences.recordSelection = RecordSelection.RANGE;
var rangeString = doc.dataMergeProperties.dataMergePreferences.recordRange;
var lastNumberString = rangeString.split("-")[1];
var lastNumberAsInteger = parseInt( lastNumberString , 10 );

alert( lastNumberAsInteger );

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

doc.dataMergeProperties.dataMergePreferences.recordNumber;