Building the Action Diagram › How to Define Logic for Elementary Processes and Procedures › Add Assignment Actions › Add Special Attribute Actions › Add COMMAND IS Action

Add COMMAND IS Action

A command is a request for action made to a Procedure Step by another Procedure Step or a user. A command tells the Procedure Step what logic to use.

A command allows you to direct the execution of a procedure. A procedure can implement more than one process. You specify the command that instructs the procedure which process to execute at any given time. You can use a command to execute an action block in the current Procedure Step or another Procedure Step.

In the Procedure Action Diagram, you create a COMMAND IS statement to set the value of the special attribute, command. Because there is only one occurrence of the command special attribute, the execution of a COMMAND IS action overlays its previous contents.

The COMMAND IS action takes the following form:

COMMAND IS command_value:

The following statement sets the command value to blanks:

COMMAND IS SPACES

The following statement sets the command value to “cancel”

COMMAND IS cancel

Note: You can add commands only when you are working with system defaults, Dialog Design, and the Action Diagram. You can add the COMMAND IS action only in the Procedure Action Diagram and in Design action blocks. Although any action blocks containing COMMAND IS actions that you create in Design can be accessed with the Action Diagram in Analysis, you cannot add or manipulate commands in Analysis. To manage commands and their synonyms, see the Design Guide.