Defining the LIST section

The )LIST section of the panel definition specifies what list choices appear on your screen. It can be useful if the selection list is displayed in a scrollable area and some of the list choices might not be visible. With the )LIST section coded, all of the choices are built into the list box, drop-down list, or combination box even if some are not immediately visible in the scrollable area.

It is used in conjunction with the attribute keywords DDLIST(name), LISTBOX(name), and COMBO(name). These keywords match the list box attributes to the corresponding list choices found in the )LIST list-name section of the panel.

The )LIST section, if you use it, follows the )PROC section. The )LIST section contains these parameters when used with list boxes and drop-down lists:


>>-)LIST--list-name--VAL(value)--CHOICE(value)-----------------><

The )LIST section contains these parameters when used with combination boxes:


>>-)LIST--list-name--CHOICE(value)-----------------------------><

where:

list-name

The name of the list. It must match a LISTBOX(name), DDLIST(name), or COMBO(name) specified on an input field in the )ATTR section. The name can be 1 to 8 characters long. Alphanumeric characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, #, $, or @ can be used in the name, but the first character cannot be numeric. Lowercase characters are converted to their uppercase equivalents.

VAL(value)

This parameter is used for list boxes and drop-down lists only. It is not used for combination boxes. The value can be a variable or text. It must be 3 characters or less (more than three characters are truncated without warning) and is used as the value placed into the CEF field when the choice is selected.

CHOICE(value)

This parameter is used with list boxes, drop-down lists, and combination boxes. The value can be a variable or text. If the value is a variable, the ampersand (&) must be in the first column following the left parenthesis of the CHOICE keyword. The length of the variable data is limited to 99 single-byte characters. If the variable data is longer than 99 bytes, it will be truncated.

CHOICE(&var)

If the value is a single word text string it is not necessary to enclose it in single quotation marks.

CHOICE(3278)

If the value is more than a single word of text, the phrase must be enclosed in single quotation marks.

CHOICE('3278 terminal type')

Literal values can be split between lines by coding a plus sign (+) as the last character on each line that is to be continued. The plus sign is used as a continuation character.

CHOICE('This is an example of a continuation +
of the literal string')

The )LIST section must contain a list-name. For list boxes and drop-down lists, it also must contain a VAL and a CHOICE for each of the choices to display in the list. Each entry in the )LIST section must contain the keywords in this order: VAL(value) CHOICE(value). For combination boxes, the list section must contain a CHOICE(value) for each of the choices to display in the list. The data in the lists is displayed in the order in which you define the choices in the )LIST section.