Maintaining Your Data Model › Creating User-Defined Field Types › Mapping Functions

Mapping Functions

If a field is to be stored internally in a form different from the one in which it is displayed externally, then you can specify mapping functions to describe how the values are to be translated.

These functions can be any CA 2E functions. They must be attached to the CA 2E shipped file *Field attribute types. The functions must have at least one parameter. There are restrictions about how other parameters can be specified.

For each field, you can use mapping functions in each direction as described below.

• External-to-Internal function: to specify how the entered value for the field is to be mapped to the internal value. Validation may be included in this function.
• Internal-to-External function: to specify how the stored value is to be converted to the displayed value. You must specify value mapping for the field type if you specify an internal-to-external function. To specify value mapping, enter a Y in the Initial value column for Allow value mapping.

Note: If you use an EXCUSRSRC function, only define your work variables once, in the Internal-to- External function.

For more information on mapping functions, see Specifying Mapping Functions.