Both groups and masks serve as templates for defining the data fields in a
record layout. A mask defines only a single data field. A group defines many related
fields.
A group is a set of logically related data fields and is used to
define a multiple field format in multiple places. For example, an address group
contains fields for street, city, state, and zip.
After defining a group, you can use it as a template for declaring
groups of data fields in the record layout.
-
Create a new group by selecting and clicking New
Group.
-
After giving the group a name, click New Field.
-
For Name, specify
the group field name.
-
For , click
the arrow to select from a menu of data types.
-
For Prefix, specify the characters that precede this field. This
separates it from the previous field in the record layout. This value is
optional.
-
For Postfix, specify the characters that follow this field. This
separates it from the next field in the record layout. This value is optional.
-
For Min Width,
specify the minimum width of the field, not including any prefix.
-
For Max
Width, specify the maximum width of the field, not including any
prefix. To disable, specify a value of -1. This is the default. For a specific
width, specify the value. Incoming data larger than that value is truncated.
-
For SF Sep, specify
a subfield separator character.
-
For Escape Pair,
specify a start escape-sequence character and an end escape-sequence character.
Escape-sequence characters are useful when using field-separator characters in
the data. The default is "". Unique or identical characters are permitted.
All separator characters found inside escape-sequence pairs are considered
escaped, and when retrieving data they are not considered as separators.
When encoding VRL data, if separator characters are found in the input
data, they are escaped by embracing them with escape-sequence pair characters.
For example, {Last, First} is encoded to {Last"," First}.
-
For Tag, specify a user-defined string. If one field has a tag,
then all fields must have tags. The Tag name can be the same as Name. For
example, "last name" for both. Or, it may be unique. For example, "last name"
for Name and "ClientLN" for the Tag name.
This option is available only when
Use Tagged Fields is selected on the
Global Properties dialog box. See
Global properties.
-
For validation, select whether fields are validated at parse time or retrieve
time.
For Validate at
Fetch, click to validate the field whenever this record layout
is retrieved or used for an input or output operation. With this selected,
messages with an invalid field are parsed, but a warning is given.
For Validate at
Parse, click to validate the field when the data is parsed. This
option forces validation even when the field is not used. With this selected,
messages with an invalid field fail when parsed.
-
Select how to validate the subfield data whenever this record layout is used as
an input or output record.
Existence
validates the existence of the data, but not its content.
Contents validates
the type of data, but not its existence.
Existence and
Contents
validate both the existence and the content of the data.
-
Select how to define the field.
For Normal,
click to define the field format by the current field entries, instead of a mask
or group. This is the default setting.
For Mask, click to
define the current field with a mask. Click the arrow to open a menu listing
available masks.