Understanding Your Data Model › Using Fields › Properties of CA 2E Fields › Field Type

Field Type

A field type indicates which specific types of values can be entered for a field.

CA 2E uses field types to:

• Determine default attribute values for the field such as length, validation, edit code
• Prevent operations from working with mixed field types
• Impose integrity checking rules for data input validation

Default field types are defined in the CA 2E shipped file, *Field Attribute Types. You can add your own field types. Following are the shipped default field types.

• Alphanumeric Fields
  • CDE (code)
  • DT# (ISO date)
  • IGC (ideographic text)
  • NAR (narrative text)
  • TM# (ISO time)
  • TS# (ISO timestamp)
  • TXT (descriptive text)
  • VNM (system name)
• Numeric Fields
  • NBR (number)
  • VAL (value)
  • QTY (quantity)
  • PRC (price)
  • PCT (percentage)
  • DTE (date)
  • TME (time)
  • SGT (surrogate)
• Special Fields
  • STS (status)
  • REF (reference)

See the chapter "Maintaining Your Data Model" for more information on user-defined field types.