Re: FW: Keyword on DSPF entry field

[Douglas Handy <dhandy1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nelson,

>Is there a "technical" reason why workstation data management
>couldn't recognize those keys too, and apply the same logic?

Yes.  For 5250 style terminals, this is done at the hardware level in the WS
controllers (AFAIK), not by WS data management.  You'd need a change to the 5250
data stream to tell the controller to enforce it, and the firmware in the
controller would need to implement it.

WS data management does not get involved until the operator has pressed an
"Attention IDentification" key, the so-called AID keys such as Enter, Fx, etc.
At that point the buffer is returned to WS data management where it can verify
things like RANGE() keywords etc.  But until an AID key is pressed, all the
keystroke processing is offloaded to the WS controller or its equivalent for
other connection types.

Since other connection types still define the screen handling based on the 5250
data stream and the data stream has no concept of what you are requesting, no
client can enforce it.

AFAIK

Reasonableness tests are a reasonable way to handle this.  As other have pointed
out, it is an operator / training issue as much as anything.  After a few times
of being asked if they really want to order 1000001 units of something, they get
conditioned to use the Field Exit key.  Same thing for my preference for parsing
a value from a character field -- but in my case I tell them embedded blanks are
not allowed rather than setting the quantity to 1000001.

Doug