Coding Standards for Database Files › Coding Standards for Display Files › Related Design Utilities › Field Level › Display File Coding Using MSGID

Display File Coding Using MSGID

We recommend that you use MSGID for all your text literals. The following particular standards apply:

• Always make MSGID and MSGCON fields an even length. This ensures there will not be truncation of ideographic shifts.
• Hard code the last colon or dot, if you are using MSGID or MSGCON for your literals. This allows you to reuse messages, and ensure that translators do not introduce errors.

Note: If you are using MSGID for your literals, use the message description as the field name. The field name does not appear in your program. You may need to append a letter to ensure that field names are unique.

For the panel title, column headings and other text elements, which occur on most panels, use standard names to identify them.