Documenting the Field: DESCRIPTION

How to:

Reference:

DESCRIPTION is an optional attribute that enables you to provide comments and other documentation for a field within the Master File. You can include any comment up to 2K (2048) characters in length.

Note that you can also add documentation to a field declaration, or to a segment or file declaration, by typing a comment in the columns following the terminating dollar sign. You can even create an entire comment line by inserting a new line following a declaration and placing a dollar sign at the beginning of the line. The syntax and rules for creating a Master File are described in Understanding a Data Source Description.

The DESCRIPTION attribute for a FOCUS data source can be changed at any time without rebuilding the data source.

Master Files support description attributes for multiple languages. For information, see Multilingual Metadata.


Top of page

x
Syntax: How to Supply Field Documentation
DESC[RIPTION] = text

where:

DESCRIPTION

Can be shortened to DESC. Abbreviating the keyword has no effect on its function.

text

Is any string of up to 2K (2048) characters. If it contains a comma, the string must be enclosed within single quotation marks.



Example: Specifying a DESCRIPTION

The following FIELD declaration provides a DESCRIPTION:

FIELD=UNITS,ALIAS=QTY,USAGE=I6, DESC='QUANTITY SOLD, NOT RETURNED',$

Top of page

x
Reference: Usage Notes for DESCRIPTION

Note the following rules when using the DESCRIPTION attribute:


WebFOCUS