Segment reference definitions

Segment reference (segRef) definitions give Message Managers the ability to reference message data dynamically. Segment references are used to point to any data object in another segment.

Segment references can be used whenever you must reference data that is not the current “this” data. The “this” data object is the data that belongs to the elementName view of the event you are currently processing. Use the following event configuration example:

1||MEMNAME|EXAMPLE||||
	attrVal|0|0|SetStr(Mr.)|||||
	attrVal|1|2|SetStr(Ben Smith)|||||

As you process each attrVal element, the “this” data is the view defined by attrVal|minElementIndex|maxElementIndex. So if you were processing the first attrVal definition, the “this” data would be “Mr”. Then when you processed the second attrVal, the “this” data would be “Ben Smith”.

Segment references can be assigned to methods and their parameters, or methods or parameters. A segment reference definition has the following legal syntaxes:

segRef(this)
segRef(SegCode/AttrCode/AsaIdxno/EntityIndex/MemberIndex/PositionIndex/
ElementCode/MinElementIndex/MaxElementIndex)

The required arguments are SegCode, AttrCode, AsaIdxno, and ElementCode.

A segment reference to the current element data object uses the segRef(this) definition and a reference to any other data object would use the following syntax:

segRef(SegCode/AttrCode/AsaIdxno/EntityIndex/MemberIndex/PositionIndex/Elem
entCode/MinElementIndex/MaxElementIndex)  

Segment references can be associated to a method (a modifier or evaluator) with dot notation (.). By default all methods are a segRef(this) definition. Thus it is not required to define a segRef definition if the current data object is to be evaluated or modified. However, if another data object other than the current data object is to be modified or evaluated then the method must be preceded by:

segRef(SegCode/AttrCode/AsaIdxno/EntityIndex/MemberIndex/PositionIndex/Elem
entCode/MinElementIndex/MaxElementIndex) dot notation

For example, if you wanted to evaluate the source code in a message while evaluating any other data object you would define your evaluator as:

segRef(MEMHEAD/////srcCode).Equals(RMC)

Segment references can also be used to dynamically input parameters to an evaluator or modifier. For example, if you would like to append the source code to an attrval you would define the following segment reference:

SetStr(segRef(MEMHEAD/////srcCode)