Displaying Data Item Properties

The FD form shows the logical structure of the data items and some of the augmentations that you have applied to the items, but to view more detail about a particular item, you need to refer to the Properties pane displayed on the right-hand side of the FD form. For each item is shows the following information:

Data Items

The following properties are displayed for typical data items in the FD:

File Item Info

COBOL Name
The name of the COBOL data item specified in the imported FD.
Picture
The value of the Picture clause.
Note: For group level items, it will indicate "Group [X(nn)]", which may not match exactly with what the original imported FD specified, as Designer creates its own representation: for example, 999 might instead be represented as 9(3).
Offset
The (zero-based) offset from the beginning of the file definition or record.
Length
The length, in bytes, of the data item.
Occurs
Indicates the occurs value of the data item, such as <min>/<max>, or Depending On <data-item>
Subscript Count
The number of subscripts (or COBOL indices) required to reference this item in COBOL.
Subscript Name
The name of the synthetic item that serves as a subscript if the item is in an OCCURS clause.
Redefines
Specifies the data item this data item redefines.
Redefined By
Specifies the data item that redefine this one. If there are multiple redefines of this item, only one will be displayed.
Default Value
The default value used in write operations when the data item is not include in an SQL INSERT statement.
Imported
Indicates if the data item was present in the FD file imported by the Designer, or if the data item was created (either automatically or manually). Many times, subscript and conditional items are generated and have this value set to False.

Advanced

Null Value
See Defining Null Information.
Redundancy Set
Identifies any redundancy sets: see Defining Item Sets.

Conditional (88-level) Data Items

The following properties are displayed for 88-level items in the FD:

Value
Represents the Value that results in a true condition. Also, it is the value that it is set to if the Condition is set to True.
True Value
Represents the values that results in a true condition.
False Value
Represents the values that results in a false condition.

Subscripted Data Items

The following properties are displayed for subscripted items in the FD:

Table Name
Identifies the table that the subscripted data item is associated with.