Focal Point
non displayable characters?

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February 11, 2005, 05:49 PM
<posf0>
non displayable characters?
Hello, I have a record that would not display its data on the CRT (via modify file...). However, when I dump the data via "table file... print" the data do appear fine. Is there any kind of non-displayable characters in Focus such that it would prevent the data from displaying on the CRT? Thanks!
February 11, 2005, 06:29 PM
j.gross
a. Are you certain you coded D. in your CRTFORM?

b. Are you referencing Fieldname, or Alias?

c. Is there a COMPUTE of this field, specifying a format, anywhere in the Modify?
February 11, 2005, 09:39 PM
<posf0>
(a) What's "coded D. in your CRTFORM"?
(b) using Fieldname
(c) No COMPUTE

The same program is displaying data for all other records in the file. It's only this one particular record that's having the hiccup. The MATCH part of the program is being executed, therefore, it appears that it found the record, but simply data are not being displayed or at least not viewable.
February 12, 2005, 11:14 PM
j.gross
Read The Focus Manual (http://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/ibase/master...eens3.htm#1027422 />):

-----------------------------------------------
The syntax for defining a field is as follows.

<[:label.][prefix.][attribute.]field[/length][>]

where:

prefix.

Refers to D. or T., which designate a display or turnaround field, respectively (see Data Entry, Display and Turnaround Fields).

field

Is the name of the field or variable being defined.
-----------------------------------------------
Thus,
"<D.COUNTRY>" displays the value of COUNTRY, protected.

"<T.COUNTRY>" displays it unprotected, so the user can enter changes.

"<COUNTRY>" allows input of a value.

Either you are using the third form (which would show an unprotected display of blanks); or your MODIFY fails to read a database record (or compute a value for the field) before displaying the CRTFORM so there is no value to display.
February 14, 2005, 01:56 PM
Robin Lovell
Sounds like that field contains one or more non-printing characters in that particular record. Can you SAVE or HOLD FORMAT ALPHA the offending record(s) and open the output in a text editor which gives you the option of viewing the data in both character and hex format (e.g. XEDIT on VM or KEDIT in Windows)?
Once you have established what the character is, you can determine whether it is valid, and if so, use CTRAN() to created a COMPUTEd field which will display in MODIFY.
February 14, 2005, 09:37 PM
<posf0>
Thank you Jack for the tips on field prefix. I checked the program and T. prefix is being used. Out of curiosity, I changed the T. to D. and all data appeared except the very first requested field - even the desire field label in quotes was not displaying for this first field.

I thought perhaps this first requested field may contain special character that would prevent it from displaying. Dumped the content of this field and it looked ok. I believe there are some blurb in the documentation about conditional/non-conditional and active/inactive fields. I'm trying to digest them and make some sense out of them. In the meantime, I'm still a bit puzzled by why data would display just by changing the field prefix from T. to D.
February 14, 2005, 11:45 PM
j.gross
If they're not too huge, post the focexec and master files.
February 17, 2005, 11:51 AM
Robin Lovell
Sorry, I misunderstood the problem. I thought you meant that just particular records were not displaying that field, not every record.
February 18, 2005, 03:59 PM
<posf0>
Robin, you were correct - only some records are having problems. It's the inconsistancy that's making it hard to resolve. Something was more pressing in the last couple days which prevented me in tackling this problem. Thanks.