HP 3000 Manuals

HP Data Entry and Forms Management System (VPLUS/V)

PROGRAM INTERFACE 

A library of high-level intrinsics is available for use by all
terminal-oriented applications.  These intrinsics can be called by any of
the supported programming languages listed in Appendix A. Appendix A also
contains listings of sample applications that use the intrinsics.

The program interface provides:

Terminal         Intrinsics to open and close a terminal file, to load
Interface        and unload forms, to display a form to the terminal, and
                 read data entered in fields of the displayed form.

Forms File       Intrinsics to open and close a forms file, to get the
Interface        next form in sequence from the forms file, and to print
                 the current form, with its contents, on the line
                 printer.

Data             Intrinsics to initialize a form to its initial values,
Manipulation     to perform any FORMSPEC or user-defined edits, and to
                 perform any final form processing as defined by
                 FORMSPEC.

Access to Data   Intrinsics to read entered data to a program buffer, or
                 write data from a program buffer, data from an entire
                 form, or only from selected fields, can be read;
                 similarly, data can be written for an entire form or
                 only for selected fields.

Data             Intrinsics to gather data entered by the user at the
Transformation   screen and transform it into the format most useful to
                 the application, or vice versa.  Data passed to or from
                 fields can be converted to or from a variety of data
                 types.

Status/Error     Intrinsics to set or capture error flags and display
Control          messages.

Batch Data       Intrinsics that open and close the batch file, write
Collection       data to the batch file, or read data from the batch
                 file.

The VPLUS/V intrinsics can be used for other purposes than data entry.
Any application that wants to display forms on a terminal, accept data
from or send data to a terminal, or validate entered data, can use the
VPLUS/V intrinsics.  The VPLUS/V intrinsics, as illustrated in Figure
1-6, can be used to:

 *  Transfer a form definition including processing specifications, from
    the forms file to the Form Definition area of memory.

 *  Display a form on the terminal screen.

 *  Transfer data from the form to the Data Buffer area of memory.

 *  Transfer data between the Form Definition and the Data Buffer areas
    of memory according to processing specifications.

 *  Transfer data between the Data Buffer in memory and either an
    application program buffer area or the batch data file used for data
    entry.

Thus, Figure 1-6 is an overview of the various transfers between elements
controlled by the VPLUS/V intrinsics.  Note that many applications use
their own files rather than the VPLUS/V batch file for the collected
data.


          Figure 1-6.  Transfers Controlled by VPLUS/V Intrinsics 

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation