Procedural alphanumerics

GDDM V3R2 Base Application Programming Guide

Procedural alphanumerics

GDDM V3R2 Base Application Programming Guide
SC33-0867-01

The GDDM alphanumeric calls display one symbol per hardware cell, and exploit the 3270 family's alphanumeric field functions. Comprehensive support is provided for both output and input on 3270 devices. Alphanumeric functions are not supported on some devices, such as plotters.

The procedural functions are so named because the alphanumeric fields are defined procedurally, that is, during execution of the program. There are calls first to define the characteristics of the fields (such as size and position), and other calls to put data into them. After an ASREAD call, alphanumeric data entered by the terminal operator can be read from the fields.

In general, it is not advisable to mix alphanumeric fields with graphics. Their positions are defined in terms of rows and columns rather than by the window coordinates used for graphics. They can be positioned only to cell accuracy, and their appearance cannot be controlled to the same extent as graphics text.

Alphanumerics and graphics can be used together, but to be successful, they usually need to occupy separate areas of the display.

The procedural alphanumeric calls are described in "Basic procedural alphanumerics" in topic 5.0 and "Advanced procedural alphanumerics" in topic 13.0.

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