FMD

Retrieves a Portion of the Data Area of a Format

This string function returns the data area or a specified portion of the data area of a format currently in memory.

Syntax

FMD( string-value [ ,element-number] [, occurrence-number] ]
[,ERR=line-ref|,ERC=error-code])

string-value: is any string that contains a format name or data name.
element-number: is a positive integer that specifies the data element to be referenced. The element-number must be 0 if a data name is specified.
occurrence-number: is a positive integer that specifies the occurrence of a data element.
line-ref: is the program line number or label to branch to if an error is produced.
error-code: is a programmer-defined error code. Valid values are positive or negative whole numbers.

Remarks

The capability of specifying a data name is generally available starting with release 8.3.0.

Starting with release 8.2.2, specifying a zero for the occurrence-value of a data element defined to have multiple occurrences will return the data for all occurrences of the data element.

An attempt to reference an invalid format/data name results in an ERR=17.

An attempt to reference a data name with a data element number results in an ERR=17.

An attempt to reference a format name that is not recognized by the data dictionary or the current program results in an ERR=161.

An attempt to reference a data name that does not exist in the format’s data element table results in an ERR=163.

An attempt to reference an occurrence number of an element that is defined to not have multiple occurrences results in an ERR=164.

An attempt to reference an invalid occurrence number of an element that is defined to have multiple occurrences results in an ERR=165.

Examples

F$="#DNFFMT";
LET D$=FMD(F$)

D$ receives the data area of the format #DNFFMT.

LET X$ = FMD (F$,2)

X$ receives the value of the second data element defined in the format #DNFFMT.

LET Y$ = FMD (F$,3,4)

Y$ receives the value of the fourth occurrence of the third data element defined in the format #DNFFMT.

Z$=FMD(F$,3,0)

Z$ receives the values of all occurrences of the third data element defined in format #DNFFMT.

FMD

Syntax

Remarks

Examples

See also