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[Maltego Forum]

Maltego Forum » Development » General
"Parent" entity while running a transform

[willis]

Hi All,

  Is it possible to access a "parent" entity while running a transform?

  For example, I run a local transform on Netblock A and it yields IP Address B. If I then want to run a second transform on B, do  I have access to the information contained in A? If so, how and to what granularity?

  More generally, is it possible to pass information (details, relationships between parents/siblings/children,etc.) about entities higher up the tree to a leaf (or non-leaf) entity while running a transform?

[RT]

Assuming you mean grand parent (as you have the parent''s data - it''s the node you clicked on). What if the node has 2 grand parents? Which parent''s data do you want? Or 10, or 1000? So - no - you cant get the grand parent''s details. However, not all hope is lost. What we normally do is to put the parent''s info in an additional field of the child (if it''s needed) - then it get''s propagated to the kids. You are responsible to add the data in what ever way you see fit - if you don''t you''ll end up with the last (in terms of modification) parent''s data.The other way (if you don''t need the data later on) is to put it in the display field - then the client will automatically merge the data for you.

Good question btw.
RT

[willis]

I see. This makes sense. I was rereading the Specification after your post and this jumped out:

Fields within the <AdditionalFields> section will be editable by the user (and will be passed on to subsequent transforms) while fields in the <DisplayInformation> are read-only, typically HTML and for display purposes only (and will not be passed along to other transforms).

Thanks for clarifying.