Is there a way a field value can be moved into a variable? I'm trying to move a counter field to a variable so that I can use the -IF command to create a loop depending on the counter.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FP Mod Chuck,

You'll have to use HOLD FORMAT ALPHA to write it to disk and use -READ to read it into an &VARIABLE.

TABLE FILE CAR
COUNT MODEL AS MODEL_COUNT
ON TABLE HOLD AS H001
ON TABLE SET ASNAMES ON
END
-RUN

-READFILE H001

-TYPE MODEL COUNT: &MODEL_COUNT

I tried doing that but it keeps the last counter number. My situation is I have hold file and each record has a different counter. I want to move this counter for each record into a variable. Is this possible?

I am trying to produce a list of student who have holds. Some students have 1 hold, while others have more than 1. How can I have the report list only the number of holds each student has? The output needs to be in XML format.

I'm at a loss how these variables will then be used. Could you give us a report spec? Maybe there's a different way of doing this that won't involve variables.

Alma,
Try this:

  
TABLE FILE CAR
COUNT MODEL AS M
BY COUNTRY
ON TABLE HOLD AS H001
ON TABLE SET ASNAMES ON
END
-RUN
-SET &C=&LINES;
-REPEAT #GET FOR &I FROM 1 TO &C;
-READFILE H001
-SET &M.&I=&M;
-#GET

This gives you variables &M1, &M2 etc. containing the counts of models per country

Depending on what you are doing, another option would be to hold the counters and then use a DECODE to pull the wanted number.

Thank you for your suggestions. Danny-SRL, it worked! Thank you!