Re: Techniques for variable field types in a subfile

It seems a little puzzling that your user community would object to
something that is under the covers of the RPG program.  To them, it
should be unknown how the field gets formatted and displayed.  But that
is neither here nor there.  On to a solution:

If the field is for display only, then I would suggest creating a
character field (say 20 characters in length) for that column then use
various methods appropriate for the data type to format the data into
the character field.

On older versions of OS/400, there are APIs that can be used to format
numerics based on edit codes or edit words, and it is very easy to
format a numeric date field into a character field using data
structures.

If you are on a version of OS/400 that supports them, there are built
in functions that will do the formatting for you.  See the RPGLE
Reference Manual appropriate for your level of the operating system.

I have used this method many times for display only fields that contain
various types of data.

Scott Bradley-Robbins
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Adventist Health - Information Systems
(916) 781-4737
bradlesd@ah.org

>>> Mark.Drazic@omniumww.com 08/09/00 12:32PM >>>
We currently have a requirement to display/edit variable field types in
a
subfile list, for example:  

Description             Value
Payment Amount          $99,999.99 <------- Numeric field
Payment Date            01/01/2000 <------- Date Field
Payment Status              ACTIVE <------- Text Field

Obviously, one can Display/Hide/Protect different columns in a subfile
list,
but this has its technical restrictions and also objections from the
user
community.  The intent here, is to use ONE column in the subfile for
fields
defined with different types.  We know this must be possible, because
applications such as DBU & PFE use a similiar technique when
displaying
fields from database files.  Any suggestions would be greatly
appreciated.

Thank you.

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