Advanced forms design can be separated into two levels of
processing specifications:
Field Edits — use
a comprehensive set of editing statements that apply to a single field.
These statements allow you to test a value entered in a field for
length, and to compare the value to a single value, a range of values,
the values in a table or against a pattern, and to test a check
digit in a field. Each of these edits applies to the field in the Field
Menu in which it appears — the editing statements do not
cross field boundaries.
Advanced Processing — includes
statements that control data movement between fields and across
forms, arithmetic calculation and formatting of data, dynamic alteration
of forms sequencing options. Any of these statements and the edit
statements can be combined into conditional statements so that processing
is performed only in specified circumstances. This type of processing,
as in any programming language, is affected by the order in which
the statements are specified. The order of statement execution can
be defined explicitly through phase statements.
Advanced forms design uses processing specifications that
are specified in the lower nonformatted area of the Field Menu.
Although they apply primarily to particular fields, some specifications
apply to the form in general. The specifications can, if desired,
be executed in four phases: configuration, initialization, field
edits, and finish. If used, phases allow the selection of:
terminal configuration for local edit
terminals and data capture devices,
initialization of fields in the form before data
is entered in the fields,
editing of data in each field after the data is
entered, and,
after all fields are edited, any finish processing
of the form.
The application requests execution of each phase with appropriate
VPLUS intrinsics, except for configuration, which is a passive phase
built into the presentation of the form. Refer to "Phases" later
in this section for more information.
If you have collected data in a batch file, you may also use
the Reformatting Capability (described in Section 5) to reformat
the data in the batch file for subsequent use by an application.
