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

Field Level

The following standards apply to coding Display file DDS at a field level:

• Define fields by reference to the field dictionary, using the DDS REFFLD keyword.

  

• Use relative positioning for device file field positioning; for example, ‘+n’, rather than absolute positioning (row n, column m).
• Use DDS field editing and validation where possible. This is more efficient than program editing.

  

Make fields that hold text descriptions an even length, and specify a W shift. This ensures they can be used for ideographic translations without truncation of ideographic shifts.