Selection Criteria

We have now defined on which file we wish to define an inversion and how we want to display the ID when the selected items are presented to the user. The next stage is to indicate on which field in the file we wish to perform the search together with any pre-selection processing prior to the field search. These are described in the following sections.

 TCL Select

There are times where the developer does not wish the user to be presented with all the records for their select criteria. An instance could be where a flag on the record would indicate that the record is no longer active. In this instance, the developer could enter a TCL statement that would only select the active records and the user defined select would be performed on this subset.

 Mandatory Search Values

When the user performs their lookup, they are prompted for a part of the ID and/or part of the search field. It is possible for the user to leave both of these fields blank. In such a case they would be presented with all valid records present in the file.

However, it may be that the file in question has a huge number or records and to present all of these records to the user would take a long time. The user may be unaware that selecting the whole file will cause such a long delay. To prevent this happening, the developer can set this field to "Y". This would then tell the system that either part of the record ID or part of the search field must be entered before the system will proceed with the search and the subsequent display of the results.

 Invert Attribute

The user can define the records required by defining part of the ID of the records they require or by defining part of an attribute. This entry allows the developer to define which field on the file is to be used as part of the search. The value entered here is the name of an attribute on the file as specified by FILE REFERENCE as referred to above. The system will verify that the attribute name entered is defined on the file layout record. If the attribute name is not present on the file layout, an error message is displayed. If it is present, then PARADYME will display the attribute number of the field on the file.

If the user cannot remember the attribute name or wish to change some aspect of the file layout definition, they should hit the [INVERT] function key. This will take them into the file layout definition screen, normally accessed via option 1 of the main menu. They will then be able to make changes to the file layout definition or use the facilities in the screen to locate the required attribute name.

Note that any changes to the file layouts will be immediately reflected on return to the prompt definition screen. Note that this [INVERT] function is a feature of the field and can be used at any time the cursor is in the ATTRIBUTE/EXPRESSION field.

 Sort Order

After selecting the records that match the user's search criteria, they are displayed on the screen. The value entered for this field determines the order in which they are presented to the user.

This is a 2 character entry. The first letter can be either "A", if the records are to be sorted in ascending order, or "D", if the records are sorted in descending order. The second letter can be either "L" to indicate that the values are left justified when they are sorted or "R" if they are to be right justified when sorted. Note that this sorting takes place on the INVERT ATTRIBUTE of the selected record

For instance, the entry "AR" would indicate that the records are so be sorted in ascending order with the invert attribute right justified when determining its sort position.

 Len, Just, Colour

These are values that determine the way in which the invert attribute is displayed for those records that have been selected. These fields follow the same rules as their corresponding counterparts that govern the display of the record ID.

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