Information displays

These information displays correspond to the MASK and OVLY line commands, which are described in Line-commands.

File-AID provides partial-screen displays of information about the current session.

File-AID treats partial-screen information displays like other informational lines (e.g., OVLY or MASK lines). The displayed lines are eliminated either by deleting the lines or with the RESET primary command.

PROF and INFO displays

File-AID also provides information displays, as shown in the following figure, displayed below the three header lines of a display. For browse or edit (all modes except unformatted), the PROFILE primary command shows a display of profile information.

In character and vertical formatted Edit mode, the INFO command shows information on the progress of the current session. The following figure shows sample PROF and INFO lines displayed from character mode Edit.

The PROF lines show the value of each display/edit option. For more information, see Setting the Edit Profile.

PROF and INFO display lines in character mode

BNDS and COLS displays

The BNDS and COLS displays are available only in character and vertical formatted mode. A BNDS display shows the left and right boundaries for a displayed record. The BNDS line has a left angle bracket ( <) to indicate the left-column boundary and a right angle bracket ( > ) to indicate the right-column boundary. If the left and right boundaries coincide, the boundary definition line contains a vertical stroke character ( | ) to indicate the position of both boundaries. The following figure shows a sample BNDS display.

Use the BNDS line command to show the BNDS display, then overtype the bounds limits (with < or >) to restrict the search range of a FIND, CHANGE, or EXCLUDE command. Data outside this range is ignored by FIND, CHANGE, and EXCLUDE unless an explicit range is specified, either by column bounds or by field name. The BOUNDS primary command (see also BOUNDS-BNDS-BND) can also be used to set the bounds limits.

BNDS and COLS display in character mode

BNDS and COLS Display in Character Mode also shows a sample COLS display. The single-line COLS display in character mode is a rule to help you determine the Data Area’s column numbers. The display is a horizontal dashed line consisting of a plus symbol (+) at positions 5, 15, 25, 35,…95 and single digit numbers displayed at intervals of 10. For example, the positions of 10, 20, 30, 40,…100 on the line would be indicated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, …0. The number 100 is represented on the information line as 0 (zero).

When you scroll the data display to the right beyond column 100, the COLS information line is useful for determining the last two (low-order) digits of the column number. The range of columns displayed is indicated in the upper right corner of the display (except when overwritten by an error message).

The COLS line is displayed by entering the Browse COLS primary command or the Edit COLS line command.

MSG and ERR displays

File-AID automatically generates special single-line messages that are displayed in the sequence number fields. The MSG display is displayed below the three-line header of data displays. It alerts you to default conditions established when the display is invoked, such as when the CAPS or STATS options are set to ON.

The ERR display is shown in the sequence field of a record if the source string of a CHANGE command is found entirely or partially within the key. This display is also shown in the sequence field of a protected overlay destination record (an O line command) if the OVLY mask line includes all or part of the key field.