Progress
Language Tutorial
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Using the Format Phrase
Throughout the tutorial, you’ve seen the appearance of widgets affected by programming options included in a DEFINE FRAME statement or on a screen I/O statement. These options are part of a Progress language structure called the format phrase. Not to be confused with the FORMAT option, the format phrase is a collection of options that you can specify after a field, variable, or expression reference in a DEFINE FRAME statement or screen I/O statement.
This simplified syntax for the DEFINE FRAME statement shows how the format phrase fits into the definition of a frame.
A frame item can be a constant, a database field, or a variable. After each, you can specify one or more options from the format phrase to affect, for example, the label, format, or position of the frame item. The partial syntax below shows the most frequently used options of the format phrase.
These options all help you design attractive and intuitive displays. Table 7–2 describes the options.
You can specify one or many format phrase options after each field, variable, or constant at these points:
Also, you can specify format phrase options for an expression in a screen I/O statement, but not in a DEFINE FRAME statement. Note the following code example:
Note that the LABEL, COLUMN-LABEL, FORMAT, and VIEW-AS phrase options are also available on the DEFINE VARIABLE statement.
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