Field Definitions

The following information is required if you want to define a local field:

• Short Name

• Field description

  You can type a text describing the contents of the field. On all subsequent screens, the local field is identified by this name.

• Header

  The header is used to calculate column headers. Note that headers are only taken into account for the output length of the field. The header can be divided over two rows.

• Field group

  The local field is included in the field group.

• Attributes

  The following options are available for determining the technical properties of a local field:

  • Reference to an existing field (reference field)

    The advantage of this option is that the local field can accept the same values as the reference field. If the reference field is a currency amount field or a quantity field, the local field inherits the currency or unit that is assigned to the corresponding reference field. In our example, the Distance field with the short name DISTANCE is a quantity field, since it contains a distance specification and a measurement unit. The local field SPEED is therefore also a quantity field and has the same unit of measure as the DISTANCE field.

  • Define the field as a text, calculation, date or time field.

    With text and calculation fields, you must specify the field size (number of characters/digits and number of decimal places).

  • Define the field as a symbol or icon

    With these fields, the contents are interpreted as a symbol or icon and output is consequently in graphical format. You could do this if you wanted to emphasize particular values or lines in the list.

• Calculation formula

  There are two ways of calculating the value of a field. See also Calculation Formulas