Field mask

The following figure is displayed when you enter the Field Mask (FM) relational operator in the relational operator (RO) column on any of the File-AID Selection Criteria screens.

Field Mask Criteria

Field Descriptions

Field Name

Name of the selected field as defined by the record layout.

Data Type

Data type of selected field as defined by the record layout.

Field Length

Length of data in selected field as defined by the record layout. This field cannot be overtyped, when you are on the Field Mask Criteria screen.

Mask Length

Length of the mask. This field may be overtyped to shorten or lengthen the length of the data to be masked. This is particularly useful when you want to mask all the elements of a group item.

Identify field positions to process: (Y = include; N = exclude)

Field Mask

A Field Mask enables processing of selected positions or part of a field. It always operates on character representation of the field. Specify Y or N to include or exclude field positions to be processed for masking.

Field Mask can be applied to both numeric and character fields.

Each mask position corresponds to a digit in the decimal value of the original field, when masking numeric fields. The selected digits are passed as a single unsigned numeric display field for the specified product function.

When masking character fields, each mask position corresponds to the identical position in the original field. The selected positions are passed as a single contiguous character field.

The original format will be replaced by MASK on the Formatted Criteria and Selection criteria screens, when Field Mask is in effect.

Primary Commands

The following primary commands are valid:

END

Saves the entered field mask parameters.

CANCEL

Discards the entries.