Configuring group subfield properties

Each field of the group is composed of one or more subfields. Subfields contain the actual data within the record. The subfields of a field are the same as the subfields of a record layout data field.

  1. Select the field in which to place the new subfield. Then, select New Subfield from the toolbar.
    Each new field contains one subfield as the default. Additional subfields are created by clicking New Subfield.
  2. For Data Type, click the arrow to select from a menu of data types. Define all subfields as String unless date conversion is required during translation.
    When a date data type is selected, the field length is automatically filled with a default value for that data type. Date subfields are automatically converted from one format to another during translation.

    For Julian, the format depends on the width of the field:

    • A width of 5 represents YYJJJ.
    • A width of 7 represents CCYYJJJ.

    Most of the date formats depend on the width:

    Adding 2 characters to the width adds the century, in formats that do not specify the century. For example, YYMMDD is 6 characters by default. If this is changed to 8 characters, then the format becomes CCYYMMDD.

    Zoned Decimal preserves the decimal.

    For Numeric, all characters must be numeric.

  3. For Fill Char, click the arrow to select the fill, or pad, character to use when creating or parsing the data in this field. The field justification determines which end of the data is padded with the fill character.
  4. For Prefix, specify the characters that precede this subfield. This separates it from the previous subfield in the record layout. This attribute is used only for variable-width subfields.
  5. For Width, specify the maximum width of the subfield, not including any prefix.
  6. For Justification, select Left Justify or Right Justify. The parser strips all padding characters on the non-justified side.
    For example, a field is right-justified and "0" is the padding character. The field before parsing is "00123" and the field after parsing is "123."
  7. For Validation, select how to validate the subfield data whenever this record layout is used as an input or output record.
    • No Selections. No validation.
    • Existence validates the existence of the data, but not its content.
    • Contents validates the type of data, but not its existence.
    • Existence+Contents validates both the existence and the content of the data.