Progress
Language Tutorial
for Windows


Defining Fields

A field is a particular item of information that helps describe the subject of a table. For example, the name of a customer, the address, and the credit limit are information items that help define a customer.

As an example of field properties, access the Cust-Num field property sheet of the Customer table as shown in Figure 4–5.

Figure 4–5: Field Properties Sheet

Two properties make up the essential definition of a field object: the field name and the data type.

Field names may be up to 32 characters long and can consist of alphabetic characters (A–Z, a–z), digits (0–9), and the special characters $, &, #, %, -, and _. A field name must begin with an alphabetic character.

The data type defines what type of data a field can store. Table 4–3 describes the Progress data types.

Table 4–3: Data Types
Data Type
Description
CHARACTER
Character fields contain any type of data (letters, numbers, and special characters). Some character fields in the Customer table are Name, Address, and Phone.
INTEGER
Integer fields contain whole numbers. They can be positive or negative, from roughly -2 billion to 2 billion. The Cust-Num field from the Customer table is an integer field.
DECIMAL
Decimal fields hold decimal numbers up to 50 digits in length, including up to 10 digits to the right of the decimal. The Balance field in the Customer table is a decimal field.
DATE
Date fields contain dates. The Invoice-Date field in the Invoice table is a date field.
LOGICAL
Logical fields contain values that evaluate to YES/NO or TRUE/FALSE. The Backorder field of the Order-Line table is a LOGICAL field.


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