Function Types

DEVELOPER

Trail: PROIV Documentation > Developer > PROIV Developer > Principles and Practice > Function Types

PROIV uses five types of function that work together to make up your application.

Screen Functions

A PROIV physical screen (i.e. what appears to the user) is made up of one or more cycles.  Each cycle has its own set of characteristics and objects specified by the developer.  This allows for the input and display of data as required by the business process.

There are two main types of screen functions:

• Flat screens (or non-paging screens) which are designed to cater for single record manipulation and utilize a  fixed number of lines of data

• Paging screens which contain a paging cycle within the function cycle and permit several data records to be displayed at the same time (with scrolling facilities) and is often used when one header record controls many detail records.
  
  Within a paging screen you can utilize the "sort/select option" facility to reduce the number of records for display by applying a selection criteria based upon specific or partial file key value.  You can also select by a range of key values.

You can also specify a screen function to act as a Window.

There is also a facility to automatically create a Browser function that will allow you to display and maintain the data within any file in the system.

The interaction between screens and their associated data files is controlled by the processing mode.  Valid screen processing modes that the user can select (provided that they have been permitted by the developer) are  Add,  Change,  Delete,  Lookup, and (for paging screens) Insert.  

Report

Report functions print reports from, and optionally update, data in files.

Document

Document functions are Page Mode Reports which provide the application developer with complete control over how the report will print.

Update

Update functions perform file processing, manipulating the data contained in the files without reference to screen or printer.

Menu

Menu functions allow the user to select a function from a list of choices displayed on the screen.  A menu may be used to select other menu functions.

Global Functions

Screen, update and report functions can be specified as Global Functions which means that they can be called from other functions.  They are similar to Global Logics in that they are external to the calling function, and can return values.

Comment on this topic

Topic ID: 730011