Characteristic-Type Statements

Characteristic-type statements, such as BLANK, BLINK, BRIGHT, INVERSE,.and others in this category, operate on items displayed on an image, rather than on fields. You use these statements to affect how an item appears to an end-user on the screen or in a report. In other words, they affect the external data representation only, not the contents of the field itself. Because you can paint a single field more than once on an image, an extra parameter called the appearance number is required to uniquely identify an item. Appearance numbers (starting at 1) are assigned to each occurrence of each field beginning at the top left-hand corner of an image, continuing across the row to the right and, then, to each subsequent row in the same manner. The following example demonstrates this pattern:

In addition, these statements are meaningful only in event points that are associated with an image (such as Pre-Display or Verify). Compiling a characteristic statement in a non-image event point is not an error; instead, the statement is ignored. This makes copied routines (using COPY or GOSUB statements) more flexible. A routine with a characteristic instruction may be copied into a non-image event point; therefore, the characteristic instructions verify at runtime that they are operating in an image-associated event point.

In general, the operation of a characteristic statement affects only the next generation of an image. In other words, the item characteristics are reset each time an image is generated. It is important to note that a characteristic statement has no effect until the specified item(s) become active. An item becomes active when the current entry level is greater than or equal to the entry level specified for that item.

Characteristic-Type Statement Keywords

BLANK, BLINK, BOLD, BRIGHT, COLOR, DIM, DISPLAY, FONT, INVERSE, NO BOLD, NO ULINE, NORMAL, PICTURE, ULINE

Example

In the following example, if the customer number entered on an order is not a valid customer, the customer name displays as blank.

          SET      TAR CUSTOMER NO                =  TAR ORDER CUSTOMER NO
          READ     TAR CUSTOMER               HOLD 0 FT 0 BY CUSTOMER NO
    F     BLANK    TAR CUSTOMER NAME              (AT APPEARANCE #    )