Purpose

UMSG displays a message or the contents of a critical variable to trace function processing.  It may also be used to pause processing for a specific or indefinite period of time.
 

Syntax

UMSG operand1{,operand2}
 

Operation

operand1 is the message, variable or expression to be displayed on the last line of the CRT, overriding any information that already exists on that line.
operand2 is any valid numeric constant, variable, or expression, representing the number of seconds to pause after displaying the alpha string contained in operand1. 
 

Remarks

If operand2 is not specified, there is no pause after displaying operand1. 

If operand2 is negative, processing pauses until the user presses RETURN.

The contents of multiple fields can be displayed via the same UMSG command by simply concatenating several alpha string variables together.  Information appears on the last line of the CRT and will overlay any previous error or user messages.  The length of the message is limited to 80 bytes. To display a numeric value, convert the value to an alpha string using the CONV or PIC functions.
 

Example 1

UMSG('HELLO')...Displays HELLO.
 

Example 2

UMSG(CONV(TOTAL))...Displays the contents of the numeric variable TOTAL.
 

Example 3

UMSG($ABC,-1)...Displays the contents of the variable $ABC and then waits for the user to enter RETURN to continue processing.
 

Example 4

UMSG('HELLO',15)...Displays HELLO and then pauses the function for 15 seconds.
 

Example 5

UMSG(CONV(A * B),600)...Displays the result of the expression A * B and then pauses the function for 10 minutes.