Using Hyphens as Placeholders

Chapter 4-2: True/False Status Indicators

There may be cases where you want to unconditionally execute a statement without checking one or more existing status indicator values, while preserving the state of that indicator level. To accomplish this action, you can use a “-” (hyphen) as a placeholder within the true/false execution conditions. For example:

IF TAR WORK FLAG EQ 1
- IF TAR RECEIPT1 POST STARTED EQ 1

In this example, the first IF statement executes unconditionally and sets the level 1 internal true/false status indicator to T or F. The second IF has a “-” in the first position of its execution conditions so it also executes unconditionally, setting the level 2 internal true/false status indicator (level 2 corresponds to the leftmost execution condition with a blank value). You can now execute additional statements conditionally based on the first two levels, which can be TT, TF, FT, or FF. This type of “truth table” logic can be extended to additional levels.

For instance, you can perform a three-statement series as shown in the following example, and then check for internal true/false status indicator values of TTT, TTF, TFT, TFF, FTT, FTF, FFT, or FFF.

          IF       TAR WORK FLAG                  EQ     1
    -     IF       TAR RECEIPT1 POST STARTED      EQ     1
    --    IF       TAR POST ERRORS                GT     0

APPX Application Design Manual (01/13/03)