Finding a path between two entities

iBridge allows you to find out whether two entities on your chart are linked, directly or indirectly, within your database, that is you can find out if there is a path in your database between two charted entities. A Find Path operation may reveal more entities and links that exist in the database, and add them automatically to the chart. It is similar to the Analyst's Notebook Find Path operation, although the items in the path must be in the database but do not have to already be on the chart.

To find a path between two charted entities:
  1. If you want to take account of link direction for the Find Path operation, you must first do one of the following:
    • In the Selection page of the Data Sources Task Pane, click the arrow to the right of Find Path and turn on Follow Direction.
    • In the Charting Settings turn on Follow Direction.
  2. Select the two entities between which you wish to find a path by clicking on the first entity and then holding down the Ctrl key while you click on the second entity. If Follow direction is turned on in the Chart Settings, or the Selection page of the Data Sources Task Pane, the order in which you select these entities is important. Select the source entity first and then the destination entity.
    Note: You can only use Find Path if you have exactly two entities selected. It does not matter whether or not any links are selected.
  3. Position your pointer over one of the selected entities, right-click and select Find Path.
The shortest paths between the original two entities are selected on your chart. Any entities and links in the paths which were not previously on your chart are added to your chart and selected.

If there were any links selected when the Find Path operation was initiated, only the links which are part of the resultant paths remain selected.

More than one path may be selected. This happens if there is more than one path of the same length and they are shorter than any other paths.

Note: If Find Path is taking too long, you can abort it by pressing the Esc key.