SPLAT fields

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Sheila Kendall
Advanced Member
Posts: 29
Advanced Member
    We have custom update program where alot of users will be updating their data.  In order to not clobber each other's data when updating at the smae time,  my understanding is that we need to use splat fields.  I would like to get a good explanation of what is ocurring and what needs to be saved in the splat fields.  Does anyone know of any good documentatiomn/discussion around this?
    Ragu Raghavan
    Veteran Member
    Posts: 468
    Veteran Member
      Let us say you are displaying all invoices for a vendor. You need to track which lines the user is currently viewing, so on a page up/down, the next/previous set of invoices can be dsiplayed. Many screens have a visible Position_To fields for this. Some don't. They use hidden aka splat fields.

      How do you track the last invoice that was viewed ? You can save the unique key (company + vendor + invoice + suffix + cancel_seq) in the WS file. That, as you mentioned, will be clobbered by the next user that comes along. Instead define these in the .scr file. This will create a (company + vendor + invoice + suffix + cancel_seq) for each user so you know where to position the lookup.

      There is brief mention in the Doc for Developers: Application Development Workbench Standards

      Hidden and Detail Tab Form Fields
      Position 8 can be used for two purposes: hidden fields and detail tab form fields.
      An asterisk (*) in position 8 indicates that the field is a hidden field (also known as a
      splat field). Hidden fields are part of the form but are not defined in the $SCREEN
      section. A hidden field could be used to display a translation of a field value rather than
      the actual value. For more information, see type X under “Field Type.”
      Another use of a hidden field is to define the window fields associated with a command
      button field.


      Sheila Kendall
      Advanced Member
      Posts: 29
      Advanced Member
        Thank you for the info.  This was helpful
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