Designing Interactive Panels (Panel Services) › Panel Control Statements › #ALIAS Control Statement—Define Alternative Name for Input Variables

#ALIAS Control Statement—Define Alternative Name for Input Variables

This control statement allows the panel definition to contain alternative names for variable names in TYPE=INPUT and TYPE=OUTVAR fields.

This facility is useful if you want to have short fields with long variable names. Each reference to name in the panel definition is regarded as a reference to the next name from the list of VARS specified.

This control statement has the following format:

#ALIAS name
    {  VARS=prefix*[ RANGE=(start,end) ] |
       VARS={ vname | (vname,vname, …,vname) } }

name

Specifies the alias name that appears in the panel definition. Whenever this name occurs in a field declared as TYPE=INPUT or TYPE=OUTVAR on the #FLD statement, Panel Services logically replaces it with the next available name from the VARS list.

The name can be from one to eight characters in length. The first character must be an alphabetic or national character. The remaining characters, if any, must be alphanumeric or national characters.

The same name can be used on multiple #ALIAS statements. The variable names are simply added to the end of the list of names to which the alias name refers.

VARS=prefix* [ RANGE=(start,end) ] |

VARS=(vname,vname, ..., vname)

Specifies the list of names to replace the alias name in the panel definition. Each time the alias name is encountered in the panel definition, it is replaced by the next available name from this list. The formats of the operands associated with VARS= are as follows:

• VARS=prefix* denotes that the variable names used are prefix1, prefix2, and so on. The RANGE= operand can be specified to indicate a starting and ending suffix number. The default is RANGE=(1,64). The format prefix* cannot be used with other variable names on the same #ALIAS statement.
• VARS=vname is the name of a variable, excluding the ampersand (&).

Examples: #ALIAS Control Statement

#ALIAS Z VARS=LONGNAME
#ALIAS Z123 VARS=(SATURDAY,SUNDAY)
#ALIAS AVAR VARS=LINE* RANGE=(10,20)

Notes:

• Multiple #ALIAS statements can be used for the same alias name if insufficient space is available on a single statement.
• If an alias name appears in the panel definition after all the variable names in the alias list have been used up, the alias name itself appears in the panel.
• Symbolic variables can be included in the #ALIAS statement. Variable substitution is performed before the statement is processed, using variables available to the NCL procedure at the time the &PANEL statement is issued.