Year 2000 and Other Enhancements in VPLUS

• Turn-of-century enhancement

• Ability to define default Field Type and Data Type for a Form

• Ability to define more than 52 single character fields per Form

• New intrinsics to get and set Save Field values programmatically

• Ability to Renumber a Form with Interactive FORMSPEC

• Intrinsic enhancements

• FORMSPEC enhancements

• Processing enhancements

Two new intrinsics have been added to VPLUS to handle dates in the next century. These are VGETYYYYMMDD and VPUTYYYYMMDD. These intrinsics are similar in structure and function to the existing intrinsics VGETYYMMDD and VPUTYYMMDD respectively. The difference is that the date values handled by the new intrinsics contain 4-digit year components.

Converts data in the data buffer to a eight-byte character value and copies it to an application.

Syntax

VGETYYYYMMDD {comarea,fieldnum,variable}

Parameters

Discussion

VGETYYYYMMDD transfers the contents of the field specified by fieldnum to a variable in an application. The contents of the field are stored in a data buffer from which the value is taken. This value is converted to YYYYMMDD format and the converted value is placed in the application variable. The YYYYMMDD format is an 8-byte ASCII value, for example, 19961225.

If errors occur during conversion, cstatus is set to an error code. If the requested field has an error, its value is moved to the variable but cstatus is set to an error code.

Refer to the VGETtype intrinsic description in the Data Entry and Forms Management System VPLUS Reference Manual for related information.

Example

COBOL
CALL "VGETYYYYMMDD" USING COMAREA FIELDNUM VARIABLE.
 
SPL
VGETYYYYMMDD(COMAREA,FIELDNUM,VARIABLE);

These calls will convert the contents of the data buffer corresponding to the field specified by FIELDNUM and place the converted value into VARIABLE.

Converts a numeric value representing a date from an application and copies the converted value to a field in the data buffer in memory.

Syntax

VPUTYYYYMMDD {comarea,fieldnum,variable}

Parameters

Discussion

VPUTYYYYMMDD converts the contents of the application variable to the date order of the field specified by fieldnum and copies the converted value into the corresponding field in the data buffer, right justified. The application variable should contain a numeric value in YYYYMMDD format. The YYYYMMDD format is an 8-byte ASCII value, for example, 19961225. If errors occur during conversion, cstatus is set to an error code.

Refer to the VPUTtype intrinsic description in the Data Entry and Forms Management System VPLUS Reference Manual for related information.

Example

COBOL
CALL "VPUTYYYYMMDD" USING COMAREA FIELDNUM VARIABLE.
 
SPL
VPUTYYYYMMDD(COMAREA,FIELDNUM,VARIABLE);

These calls will convert the contents of VARIABLE to a date value and place the converted value in the data buffer corresponding to the field specified by FIELDNUM.

FORMSPEC Application Ready Buffer (ARB) processing has been enhanced with the addition of a new ARB data type. This data type can be specified on the DTC Menu for Data Type Conversions from Screen Type to Application Type. The new ARB Type is YYYYMD and is defined as a 8-byte ASCII field containing a date value in YMD order with no separators. Also the year component in the date value has 4 digits. Note that FORMSPEC will ensure a length of 8 for the data type YYYYMD in the ARB. In essence, the value is of the form YYYYMMDD (8 bytes) even though the Type designator on the DTC Menu has been abbreviated to YYYYMD.

For more details on ARB Types and how to use them, refer to the "ARB Data Types" section in the Data Entry and Forms Management System VPLUS Reference Manual.

Date processing in VPLUS has been enhanced to handle date values with 4-digit year components. Specifically, the following additions have been made.

Date output will be formatted with 4-digit years if the target field is wide enough to receive the date, and the user requests this action. Examples of such output include the SET statement in FORMSPEC. The target field should be at least 10 characters in length to have a 4-digit year output.

VPLUS, by default, will format date output with 2-digit years. To change the behavior as described above, define a JCW called VSETNEXTCENTURY and set bit 15 to 1 (bits are numbered from 0 through 15). It should be noted that this option will be active for fields wide enough to hold the 4-digit year date. For other fields, 2-digit years will be used.

Existing 2-digit years can be interpreted differently to handle dates in the next century. Currently VPLUS handles year components 00-99 as 1900-1999. This scheme of interpretation can be changed. In the new scheme, 00-49 is interpreted as 2000-2049 and 50-99 is interpreted as 1950-1999. This interpretation will be valid through all processing done by VPLUS. For example, this scheme will allow the user to enter 02/29/00 (MDY order) in an existing application and have it processed correctly.

To invoke the above method of date interpretation, define a JCW called VSETNEXTCENTURY and set bit 14 to 1. Note that this method is used for processing only 2-digit year dates and not 4-digit year dates. Note also that the display of 2-digit year dates is not affected by this enhancement. This means that 12/11/10 (MDY order) can refer to 1910 in one application and 2010 in another application.

	NOTE: When defining the JCW VSETNEXTCENTURY, set all unused bits to 0.

In the case where one of the characters listed above (a Digit or a Special) is used in a single character field, the Field Name will be blanked out when the Field Menu is invoked for the field the first time. The user should input a new name for the field in this case. With this enhancement, a maximum of 80 single character fields can be defined for a Form.

Copies contents of the specified save field from save field buffer in memory to an application.

Syntax

VGETSAVEFIELD {comarea,sfname,sfbuf,buflen,actualen}

Parameters

Discussion

VGETSAVEFIELD transfers the contents of the save field specified by sfname to a variable in an application.

If the number of bytes specified by buflen is less than the length of the save field, the bytes to the right are truncated. Following a successful transfer, actualen is set to the actual number of bytes transferred to sfbuf.

VGETSAVEFIELD does not convert the data moved to the application variable.

Example

COBOL
CALL "VGETSAVEFIELD" USING COMAREA SFNAME SFBUF BUFLEN ACTLEN.
 
SPL
VGETSAVEFIELD(COMAREA,SFNAME,SFBUF,BUFLEN,ACTLEN);

These calls will transfer the contents of the save field specified by SFNAME to SFBUF. If the call is successful, ACTLEN will contain the exact number of bytes transferred.

Copies data from an application to the specified save field in memory.

Syntax

VPUTSAVEFIELD {comarea,sfname,sfbuf,buflen,actualen}

Parameters

Discussion

VPUTSAVEFIELD transfers the contents of the application variable specified by sfbuf to the save field in memory specified by sfname.

If the length of the save field is less than the length specified by buflen, the bytes to the right are truncated. Following a successful transfer, actualen is set to the actual number of bytes transferred to the save field in memory.

Note that the contents of the save field as recorded in the forms file is not changed by a call to VPUTSAVEFIELD. Also VPUTSAVEFIELD does not convert the data moved to the save field in memory.

Example

COBOL
CALL "VPUTSAVEFIELD" USING COMAREA SFNAME SFBUF BUFLEN ACTLEN.
 
SPL
VPUTSAVEFIELD(COMAREA,SFNAME,SFBUF,BUFLEN,ACTLEN);

These calls will transfer the contents of the application buffer SFBUF to the save field in memory specified by SFNAME. If the call is successful ACTLEN will contain the exact number of bytes transferred.