Hi all,
i am pretty new to WebFocus development,i want to know whats the difference between USAGE and ACTUAL in a master file.
if you open open a master file in a text editor for all the fields i could see USAGE = A5,ACTUAL = A5,SO i want to know whats the significance of the usage , actual.


please reply....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

Have you tried reading the documentation?

Describing Data With WebFOCUS Language

The USAGE format is the one used to display the field on a report. The ACTUAL format describes how many bytes the field occupies on disk. For alpha fields this is ordinarily the same, but it can and often is different for other formats.

For instance, for a relational table, the ACTUAL may be DATE but the USAGE may be YYMD.

For sequential files and numeric fields, the ACTUAL might be I4 and the USAGE might be I6. A 4-byte field stored as an integer can hold a much larger displayable number than 9999.

I would suggest some reading in the Data Adminstration manual for a more robust discussion.

thanks.