BREAK setting

A group is a set of pages that logically belong together. For example, all the pages in a single bank statement could comprise a group. A group is a single document, or a segment, as it was known in Spool File Archive. A group break is the process of closing the current group and starting a new group. In Spool File Archive, this process was known as segmentation. For a specific group index, the BREAK setting determines whether the 400 indexer begins a new document when that index's value changes.

When you specify BREAK=YES, the 400 indexer begins a new group when the value of the field on which the index is based changes. BREAK=NO is useful when you define two or more fields and you want the 400 indexer to begin a new group only when the other of the two fields' value changes. Specify BREAK=YES only for the index that is based on the field that you want the 400 indexer to use to control the group break. Specify BREAK=NO for all the other indexes in the group.

To expand on the bank statement example, consider storing bank statements. Each statement begins with a change in account number from the previous statement. You defined indexes for Account Number, Customer Name, and Statement Date. Most likely, you want Account Number to be set to BREAK=YES, Customer Name to BREAK=NO, and Statement Date to BREAK=NO. Doing this ensures that a group break occurs only when Account Number changes. The corresponding indexer parameters in the Application definition might look like this:

The Content Manager OnDemand Administrator client's Report Wizard is designed to simplify the process of defining application groups, applications, and folders. The Wizard makes the assumption that any change in an index that is defined as TYPE=GROUP should cause a group break. Thus, it sets all index fields to BREAK=YES. If the index is based on a float trigger (TYPE=FLOAT), then BREAK=NO is set by default. Indexes based on float triggers can be changed to BREAK=YES, if necessary.

Note that if you have selected the Allow Multiple Values option, BREAK is automatically set to NO and should not be changed.

If you already archived data with all of your indexes set to BREAK=YES, you can still make this change. Changing some of your indexes from BREAK=YES to BREAK=NO can be done at any time. As with any change to your indexer parameters, you should verify that your reports archive correctly after the change. Any reports already archived do not need to be rearchived; however, the change will only affect reports that are archived after the change is made.