Control Commands

The application developer can use specific CA ADS commands to perform the following operations:

Pass control from one dialog to another dialog or to a user program
Display a map
Terminate an existing dialog or application
Exit the CA ADS environment
Direct processing to specified places within a dialog
Reinitialize the record buffers associated with a dialog
Establish the status and level of a dialog within the application structure
Implicitly govern the available data and database currencies maintained for a dialog

Most of the control commands are available to all applications. When designing dialogs that will become part of an application defined by using the CA ADS Application Compiler, the developer can also use the EXECUTE NEXT FUNCTION command.

The CA ADS control commands are as follows:

DISPLAY

Requests display of the dialog's map or reexecution of the premap process

INVOKE

Specifies the next lower-level dialog to be executed in the application thread

LEAVE

Terminates the current application, optionally initiating another application, or terminating the CA ADS session

LINK

Specifies the next lower-level dialog to be executed in the application thread, implicitly establishing a nested application structure, or links to a user program that executes outside the CA ADS environment

RETURN

Terminates the currently executing dialog, returns control to a higher-level dialog, and, optionally, initializes that dialog's record buffers

TRANSFER

Terminates the currently executing dialog and passes control to a dialog at the same level (which may be the same dialog)

EXECUTE NEXT FUNCTION

Activates fields in the ADSO-APPLICATION-GLOBAL-RECORD that determine the next activity to be executed

For further information on the way in which the runtime system moves information to these fields, refer to "Global Records" in Chapter 5:.

Note: If an EXECUTE NEXT FUNCTION command is encountered in a dialog that has not been defined to an ADSA application, the command is processed as a DISPLAY command and a message is issued indicating that the user should select the next function.