Conditional expressions

The conditional expression is enclosed in brackets immediately following the pattern operand.

If simple values or tables of values are not sufficient to qualify pattern matching, you can use conditional expressions. These expressions have the following format:

operand [conditional expression]

A simple conditional expression consists of an operand, a relational operator, and a second operand. The following are the relational operators:

<	Original token is less than
>	Original token is greater than
=	Abbreviation or original token is equal to
=A=	Abbreviation is equal to
=T=	Original token is equal to
<=	Original token is less than or equal to
>=	Original token is greater than or equal to
!=	Abbreviation or original token is not equal to
!=A=	Abbreviation is not equal to
!=T=	Original token is not equal to

The left operand can be any of the following elements:

A variable name
The field contents for the current operand
The contents for any dictionary field

The right operand can be any of the following elements:

A variable name
A literal
A constant

The complete format of a conditional expression is:

left-operand relational-operator right-operand

The following table explains the expression:

Operation	Valid values
left-operand	`{} {} PICT {} LEN {field-name} {field-name} PICT {field-name} LEN variable-name variable-name PICT variable-name LEN <arithmetic-expression>`
relational-operator	`< > <= >= != =`
right-operand	`Literal Constant Variable name`