Re: Not keying decimal points -- MIDRANGE-L

Booth,

Not trying to start any holy war here.  :-)
I've always found it puzzling that there wasn't an easy way to do what I 
wanted, and what was requested by Lance. 
The solution I mentioned comes close, but it beats me why IBM couldn't 
correct the behaviour that causes the "Field -" key to display the hex 
"D_" character, instead of just displaying the digit followed by the '-' 
sign.
Minor nuisance though it is, I still think it's a pain coding Edit Words 
when there is an Edit Code to basically do what you want, and that doesn't 
have to be changed if field lengths change.  I'm not particularly 
concerned whether a zero displayed as "0.0000" or " .0000", so wouldn't 
switch to an Edit Word just for that.  CHECK(ER) may be a valid solution, 
and not impact performance on a local LAN - but could be a concern for 
remote users with slower connections.

Neil Palmer      DPS Data Processing Services Canada Ltd.
50 Acadia Avenue, Ste.102                   AS/400~~~~~
Markham, Ontario, Canada.   ____________          ___  ~ 
Phone:(905) 474-4890 x303   |OOOOOOOOOO| ________  o|__||= 
Cell.:(416) 565-1682 x303   |__________|_|______|_|______) 
Fax:  (905) 474-4898         oo      oo   oo  oo   OOOo=o\ 
mailto:NeilP@DPSlink.com  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
http://www.DPSlink.com     iSeries 400  The Ultimate Business Server






booth@martinvt.com
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
2001/01/27 11:21
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        To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: Not keying decimal points


Neil this can become a Jihad if we aren't careful but I would like to add 
a few comments.  I just tried a couple of sample screens and decided to 
respond. 

The EDTWRD is a valid choice in my opinion.  It allows the leading zero to 

be placed where you wish and is used by all of us with regularity.  So far 

as counting spaces, well... I don't know what to say, I rank right down 
there with the world's worst typists and only one tiny step up when it 
comes to counting to ten so your comment has sympathy here.

However the main thrust of this reply is the idea of using the CHECK(ER) 
keyword.  I am changing my programming style to copy the event-based 
processing algorithm instead of the huge all-at-once validity subroutine. 
As I learn more and more about the benefits of event-based programming I 
am finding more and more ways to use the idea.  The AS/400 is giving us 
sub-second response times now so it is completely reasonable for EXFMT to 
return the name of the cursor's field and use a SELECT group and have the 
select routine do a field-by-field validation process as the user 
progresses through the screen.  In a case like you mention here one could 
just recognize the cursor was in the field and immediately finish the 
cycle and be back to the EXFMT with the field correctly formatted 
including commas or whatever. 


_______________________
Booth Martin
Booth@MartinVT.com
http://www.MartinVT.com
_______________________




"Neil Palmer" <neilp@dpslink.com>
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
01/27/2001 12:09 AM
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        Subject:        Re: Not keying decimal points

That doesn't make any difference to the behaviour of the Field - key 
changing negative 0 through nine to '}JKLMNOPQR'   -  besides an edit word 


is more trouble than it's worth, having to count out the exact number of 
replaceable characters, troubles when field lengths change, etc.

...Neil





booth@martinvt.com
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
2001/01/26 21:32
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        Subject:        Re: Not keying decimal points


What if you used the EDTWRD('    0.000-')  instead of the L edit code?
_______________________
Booth Martin
Booth@MartinVT.com
http://www.MartinVT.com
_______________________




"Neil Palmer" <neilp@dpslink.com>
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
01/26/2001 08:21 PM
Please respond to MIDRANGE-L

 
        To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: Not keying decimal points

That's been something I've trying to figure out a better solution to for 
years.  The answer is yes, IF you are willing to accept use of the Field - 




key displaying a number like negative 25.55 as  25.5N when Field - is 
pressed.  Of course it displays correctly when you redisplay the field.
If the user wants, they can also key 25.55- (key the '-' key after 25.55) 
and press Field + or Field Exit, to avoid the 25.5N display.

REFSHIFT(Y)
EDTCDE(L)
CHECK(RB)
optionally - if you don't want negatives RANGE(0 99999.99)  or whatever 
field size is

Oh - an amount of zero would display like 
.00
and not 
0.00

My main reason for wanting this, besides making decimal point entry 
optional, was to clearly display to the user how many decimal fields they 
are allowed to enter into the field.  So a blank zero pay rate field may 
display like
.0000
which lets them know they have 4 decimal places they can use.

If anyone has a solution that eliminates the quirk with the display of 
negative numbers when using the 'Field -' key  I'd sure like to hear it.

...Neil





Gwecnal@aol.com
Sent by: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
2001/01/25 12:30
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        cc: 
        Subject:        Not keying decimal points


Is there some magic combination of keyboard shift, edit code or word, and 
CHECK
keywords that will allow me to display a numeric like this:

   0.00         left justified with decimal,  zero amount
 12.34         left justified with decimal,  positive amount
 45.67-        left justified with decimal, negative amount

AND

allow the user to key in an amount and use field plus or field minus to 
justify
the entry 

AND

have the use of the decimal point optional?  That is, they don't have to 
key
the decimal, but they may.

The accounting people are used to not keying decimal points since they
do not have to on their calculators or older programs, but they would like
to start seeing the decimals on the entry screens.  All the above is easy
to do if you don't need editing, and I can't quite figure out how to do it 





with 
editing.

TIA, Lance



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