Condition display fields without indicators

I received a message after publishing the No More Number Indicators story about an alternate method of conditioning fields in a Display file without using indicators. As the person who sent me this did so as Anonymous I cannot thank them by name, but you know who you are.

I did use this method once, many years ago. I had create a program and display file for the editing of UB82 and UB92, universal billing forms used by hospital and doctors to submit to Medicare and other insurance companies. To put all of the fields on screens made it look too confusing and complicated. Therefore, I tried to make it easier to understand by only displaying the field relevant to the type of claim, highlighted the fields in error, etc. Before long I found I was using just about all of the indicators, *IN01 - 99, on the first couple of record formats. What was I going to do for the rest?

A look in the IBM manual for programming with displays introduced me to Program to Systems fields. By passing a hexadecimal value to a field in the display file I could eliminate most of the indicators I had been using.

In this example PFLD001 is defined as a Program to System field, see line 3 below. This is defined as a single byte alphanumeric field, with 'P' for the field Use. The DSPATR on line 2 indicates that the field FLD001 is conditioned by the field PFLD001.

01 A R SCREEN1 02 A FLD001 3A B 2 2DSPATR(&PFLD001) 03 A PFLD001 1A P

All I have to do is move the appropriate hexadecimal value to PFLD001, see below, and that will change the way FLD001 is displayed. Below is how I could do it in RPGLE/RPG IV using the hexadecimal code for red and reverse image:

01 FDISPLAYF CF E WORKSTN 02 /free 03 PFLD001 = x'29' ; 04 exfmt SCREEN1 ;

One of the display attributes I used in this program was the Position Cursor, DSPATR(PC), which is not handled with Program to System fields. Therefore, if the user wanted to move to the next field in error they would press F2, the key I designated for this purpose, and I had to use indicators to position the cursor to the next field.

So what are all of the hexadecimal values that can be used for Program to System fields, and what are they the equivalent of:

Hex	Color COLOR()	Display attribute DSPATR()	Displayed as
20	GRN		Green
21	GRN	RI	Green, reverse image
22	WHT		White
23	WHT	RI	White, reverse image
24	GRN	UL	Green, underline
25	GRN	UL RI	Green, underline, reverse image
26	WHT	UL	White, underline
27		ND	Nondisplay
28	RED		Red
29	RED	RI	Red, reverse image
2A	RED	HI	Red, high intensity
2B	RED	HI RI	Red, reverse image, high intensity
2C	RED	UL	Red, underline
2D	RED	UL RI	Red, unline, reverse image
2E	RED	UL BL	Red, underline, blink
2F		ND	Nondisplay
30	TRQ	CS	Turquoise, column separator
31	TRQ	CS RI	Turquoise, column separator, reverse image
32	YLW	CS	Yellow, column separator
33	WHT	RI CS	White, reverse image, column separator
34	TRQ	UL CS	Turquoise, underline, column separator
35	TRQ	UL RI CS	Turquoise, underline, reverse image, column separator
36	YLW	UL CS	Yellow, underline, column separator
37		ND	Nondisplay
38	PNK		Pink
39	PNK	RI	Pink, reverse image
3A	BLU		Blue
3B	BLU	RI	Blue, reverse image
3C	PNK	UL	Pink, underline
3D	PNK	UL RI	Pink, underline, reverse image
3E	BLU	UL	Blue, underline
3F		ND	Nondisplay

Hex	Color COLOR()	Display attribute DSPATR()	Displayed as
A0	GRN	PR	Green, protected
A1	GRN	PR RI	Green, protected, reverse image
A2	WHT	PR	White, protected
A3	WHT	PR RI	White, protected, reverse image
A4	GRN	PR UL	Green, protected, underline
A5	GRN	PR UL RI	Green, protected, underline, reverse image
A6	WHT	PR UL	White, protected, underline
A7		ND PR	Nondisplay, protected
A8	RED	PR	Red, protected
A9	RED	PR RI	Red, protected, reverse image
AA	RED	PR HI	Red, protected, high intensity
AB	RED	PR HI RI	Red, protected, reverse image, high intensity
AC	RED	PR UL	Red, protected, underline
AD	RED	PR UL RI	Red, protected, unline, reverse image
AE	RED	PR UL BL	Red, protected, underline, blink
AF		ND PR	Nondisplay, protected
B0	TRQ	PR CS	Turquoise, protected, column separator
B1	TRQ	PR CS RI	Turquoise, protected, column separator, reverse image
B2	YLW	PR CS	Yellow, protected, column separator
B3	WHT	PR RI CS	White, protected, reverse image, column separator
B4	TRQ	PR UL CS	Turquoise, protected, underline, column separator
B5	TRQ	PR UL RI CS	Turquoise, protected, underline, reverse image, column separator
B6	YLW	PR UL CS	Yellow, protected, underline, column separator
B7		ND PR	Nondisplay, protected
B8	PNK	PR	Pink, protected
B9	PNK	PR RI	Pink, protected, reverse image
BA	BLU	PR	Blue, protected
BB	BLU	PR RI	Blue, protected, reverse image
BC	PNK	PR UL	Pink, protected, underline
BD	PNK	PR UL RI	Pink, protected, underline, reverse image
BE	BLU	PR UL	Blue, protected, underline
BF		ND PR	Nondisplay, protected

Rather than use the hexadecimal codes it would make it easier to understand if they are given meaningful names. If I was to use them again I would create a datastructure that would look like this:

* Program To System Fields D PgmToSys DS qualified * Fields will be unprotected D GRN 1A inz(x'20') D GRN_RI 1A inz(x'21') D WHT 1A inz(x'22') D WHT_RI 1A inz(x'23') D GRN_UL 1A inz(x'24') D GRN_UL_RI 1A inz(x'25') D WHT_UL 1A inz(x'26') D ND 1A inz(x'27') D RED 1A inz(x'28') D RED_RI 1A inz(x'29') D RED_HI 1A inz(x'2A') D RED_HI_RI 1A inz(x'2B') D RED_UL 1A inz(x'2C') D RED_UL_RI 1A inz(x'2D') D RED_UL_BL 1A inz(x'2E') D TRQ_CS 1A inz(x'30') D TRQ_CS_RI 1A inz(x'31') D YLW_CS 1A inz(x'32') D WHT_RI_CS 1A inz(x'33') D TRQ_UL_CS 1A inz(x'34') D TRQ_UL_RI_CS 1A inz(x'35') D YLW_UL_CS 1A inz(x'36') D PNK 1A inz(x'38') D PNK_RI 1A inz(x'39') D BLU 1A inz(x'3A') D BLU_RI 1A inz(x'3B') D PNK_UL 1A inz(x'3C') D PNK_UL_RI 1A inz(x'3D') D BLU_UL 1A inz(x'3E') * Fields will be protected D PR_GRN 1A inz(x'A0') D PR_GRN_RI 1A inz(x'A1') D PR_WHT 1A inz(x'A2') D PR_WHT_RI 1A inz(x'A3') D PR_GRN_UL 1A inz(x'A4') D PR_GRN_UL_RI 1A inz(x'A5') D PR_WHT_UL 1A inz(x'A6') D PR_ND 1A inz(x'A7') D PR_RED 1A inz(x'A8') D PR_RED_RI 1A inz(x'A9') D PR_RED_HI 1A inz(x'AA') D PR_RED_HI_RI 1A inz(x'AB') D PR_RED_UL 1A inz(x'AC') D PR_RED_UL_RI 1A inz(x'AD') D PR_RED_UL_BL 1A inz(x'AE') D PR_TRQ_CS 1A inz(x'B0') D PR_TRQ_CS_RI 1A inz(x'B1') D PR_YLW_CS 1A inz(x'B2') D PR_WHT_RI_CS 1A inz(x'B3') D PR_TRQ_UL_CS 1A inz(x'B4') D PR_TRQ_UL_RI_CS 1A inz(x'B5') D PR_YLW_UL_CS 1A inz(x'B6') D PR_PNK 1A inz(x'B8') D PR_PNK_RI 1A inz(x'B9') D PR_BLU 1A inz(x'BA') D PR_BLU_RI 1A inz(x'BB') D PR_PNK_UL 1A inz(x'BC') D PR_PNK_UL_RI 1A inz(x'BD') D PR_BLU_UL 1A inz(x'BE')

I know the subfield names are not great, but I think they are descriptive once you work out that they are the color codes followed by the display attribute codes.

I would keep this data structure in its own member, that way it can be copied into the source code of another.

I have also qualified the data structure, therefore, when using any of the subfields I have to qualify it with the data structure's name. For example to change the attribute to red and reverse image I would code the subfield as: PgmToSys.RED_RI

This means I can do the same as my previous example of RPGLE/RPG IV code as:

01 FDISPLAYF CF E WORKSTN 02 /include mylib/mysrc,pgm2sysfld 03 /free 04 PFLD001 = PgmToSys.RED_RI ; 05 exfmt SCREEN1 ;

On line 2 I have used /INCLUDE, which is the same as /COPY. PGM2SYSFLD is the name of the member that contains the data structure.

You can learn more this on the IBM website:

• DSPATR and Program to System values
• Use field in Display files

 

This article was written for IBM i 7.1, and it should work with earlier releases too.