Creating a Panel Definition › Defining and Changing Field Attributes

Defining and Changing Field Attributes

You can define field attributes using any of the following fill‑ins:

Field Summary Table

You can enter the field name, display attributes, type, length, number of integer and decimal places, occurrences, and comments, and indicate whether the field can contain null values. This is the only panel where you can define repeating fields or groups.

To display this fill‑in, press the PF9 key or enter the command SUMMARY.

Input Rules Table

You can enter the field name and specify the editing rules and validation that is performed on values entered in the field. The following editing rules can be specified:

• How an input error is highlighted.
• Whether the field requires an entry.
• The minimum and maximum values that you can enter.
• Whether you can use the Erase EOF key in the field.
• How the value is justified in the field.
• What character pads the value to the length of the field.
• Whether values are converted to upper case, or left in mixed case.
• The number of decimal places required.
• Whether a digit separator is allowed in the value.
• Whether a minus sign is allowed in the value.
• Whether a currency symbol is allowed in the value.
• Whether a check digit test is performed for a field entry.
• Whether the value must be the full length of the field.

To display this fill‑in, enter the command IRULES.

Output Rules Table

You can enter the field name and specify the rules used for displaying the field when the panel is transmitted. You can specify the following rules:

• The edit pattern that displays a value in the field.
• The character that fills the field when it is blank.
• The color of the displayed field.
• The type of highlighting that displays the field.

To display this fill‑in, enter the command ORULES.

Extended Field Definition fill‑in

This fill‑in is different, depending on the Type of the field. There are three versions of the Extended Field Definition fill‑in: One for alphanumeric fields, one for numeric fields, and one for group fields. You can change defaults for the field that were set for the entire panel in the Panel Parameter fill‑in and entering or changing values that were set in the Input Rules, Output Rules, or Field Summary Table.

To display this fill‑in, enter the command FIELD with the field name or sequence number.

The Field Summary, Input Rules, and Output Rules tables (collectively known as the attribute definition tables) list all the fields in the panel layout, according to the sequence number assigned the field on the layout. Unlike the attribute definition tables, the Extended Field Definition fill‑in shows values for only one field at a time.

If you change information on one fill‑in that is duplicated on another fill‑in, the information is automatically changed on the other fill‑in. Because the attributes appear on more than one panel in the definition process, the attributes are not defined after each panel in this book. Instead, the attributes are defined in alphabetical order in the section titled Attributes Used to Define Fields later in this chapter.