CONTINUE

Purpose

Terminates a current process, executes a dialog's premap process, and specifies a message.

In the online environment, the message appears at the terminal when the dialog executes a DISPLAY command. In the batch environment, the message is sent to the log file and/or the operator's console.

Syntax

►►─── CONtinue ────┬─────────────────────────────────┬─ . ────────────────────►◄
                   └─┬─ MESSage ─┬─ message-options ─┘
                     └─ MSG     ─┘

Expansion of Message-Options

►►────┬─ TEXT ─────┬──────┬────────── message-text ───────────────────────────►
      │            ├─ IS ─┤
      │            └─ =  ─┘
      └─ CODE ─────┬──────┬────────── message-code ───────────────────────────
                   ├─ IS ─┤
                   └─ =  ─┘

 ►────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────►
  ────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────
      │                         ┌──────────────┐      │
      └─ PARMS ────┬─────┬─── (─▼── parameter ─┴─ ) ──┘
                   └─ = ─┘

 ►────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────►◄
  ────┬────────────────────────────────────────┬──────┘
      └─ PREFIX ───┬──────┬─────── prefix ─────┘
                   ├─ IS ─┤
                   └─ =  ─┘

Parameters

MESSage message-options

Identifies message to be displayed.

MSG can be used in place of MESSAGE.

Expanded syntax for message-options is shown above immediately following the CONTINUE syntax.

TEXT IS message-text

Specifies the text of a message to be displayed in an online map's message field or sent to a batch application and a system log file.

Message-text specifies either the name of a variable data field containing the message text or the text string itself, enclosed in single quotation marks.

The text string can contain up to 240 displayable characters.

IS or = are optional keywords and have no effect on processing.

CODE IS message-code

Specifies the message dictionary code of a message to be displayed in an online map's message field or sent to the log file in a batch application.

In a batch application, the message is also sent to the operator, if directed by the destination specified in the dictionary.

Message-code specifies either the name of a variable data field that contains the message code or the 6-digit code itself, expressed as a numeric literal.

IS or = are optional keywords and have no effect on processing.

PARMS = parameter

Specifies a replacement parameter for each variable field in the stored message identified by message-code.

Up to nine replacement parameters can be specified for a message. Multiple parameters must be specified in the order in which they are numbered and separated by blanks or commas.

Parameter specifies either the name of an EBCDIC or unsigned zoned decimal variable data field that contains the parameter value or the actual parameter value, enclosed in single quotation marks.

The parameter value must contain displayable characters. At run time, each variable data field in a stored message expands or contracts to accommodate the size of its replacement parameter. A replacement parameter can be a maximum of 240 bytes.

PREFIX IS prefix

Overrides the default prefix of a dialog and a map.

Prefix must either specify an EBCDIC or unsigned zoned decimal variable data field that contains a 2-character prefix or the 2-character prefix itself, enclosed in single quotation marks

IS or = are optional keywords and have no effect on processing.

Usage

Considerations

The premap process is reexecuted if CONTINUE is issued in the premap process. This differs from the DISPLAY CONTINUE command, which causes a pseudo-converse in the online environment.
Any message specified on the CONTINUE command is ignored in the online environment if the DISPLAY command that follows also specifies a message.
Up to nine replacement parameters can be specified for a message.
Multiple parameters must be separated by blanks or commas.
Multiple parameters must be specified in the order in which they occur in the stored message.