IO Formats

IO formats, or masks, allow you to specify how strings should be entered in the interface. The characters that you can use in such masks are specified in the following tables.

Character	Purpose
.	Indicates a decimal point. The number of 9s after the decimal point indicates the precision. See the note below.
,	Indicates a comma used as numeric separator (e.g. in amounts of money). See the note below.
/	Indicates a slash.
9	Indicates a digit.
B	Indicates a blank.
Z	Indicates that leading zeroes must not be displayed on the positions of digits. For example, ZZZZ9.99 displays 1.25 instead of 00001.25 (the leading zeroes are replaced by blanks).
$ or £	Used instead of leading 9s they indicate where the currency sign is to be displayed. First, the 9s and currency signs are used to determine the positions of the digits to be displayed. Then, the rightmost unused $ or £ character determines the position of the currency sign. For example, $$$$999 displays a value of 2222 as $2222
+ or -	Used instead of leading 9s they indicate where the plus or minus sign is to be displayed. First, the 9s and plus or minus signs are used to determine the positions of the digits to be displayed. Then, the rightmost unused + or – character determines the position of the plus or minus sign. For example, ++++999 displays a value of 2222 as +2222 If you use minus signs, the minus is not displayed when the value is positive.

NOTE 1: The comma and period that are used to indicate thousands and decimals will be replaced in the display by the values set in the Control Panel.

Values from the Control Panel are read once at the time of the first conversion. If you wish to use new Control Panel settings (after making any changes), you must restart the Definer or the Windows Designer afterwards.

NOTE 2: The values set in the control panel can be overruled, if required, using the following resources:

*decGroupSeparator: <value>

the symbol used to separate groups of three digits (thousands, millions, etc.)

*decFracSeparator: <value>

the decimal separation character.

For example:

*decFracSeparator: ,

*decGroupSeparator: .

results in

1.234.567,01

These resources can be set in the USDI resource file, for example, or on the command line. using

-xrm "<resouce name>:<value>"

For example:

-xrm "*decFracSeparator:," -xrm "*decGroupSeparator:."

NOTE 3: The resources must be set as a pair, as shown above. If you only set one of them, you will receive an error message, and the default values will be used.

USoft Developer assumes that your RDBMS returns a period as a decimal separator. If this is not the case, make sure that the actual separator is made known to USoft Developer by setting the following resource:

*dbDecFracSeparator : value

Character	Purpose
CC, or SCC	Current Century ("S" prefixes a BC date with "-")
YYYY, or SYYYY	Year ("S" prefixes a BC date with "-")
YYY, YY, or Y	Last 3, 2, or 1 digit(s) of the year
CCYY	This element does almost the same as YYYY. The difference is that when CCYY is used and only part of the year is given as input the rest of the date is defaulted to the last millennium, century or decade. For example; when using the CCYY IO-Format, in 1999, the input 99 will result in: 1999. When using the YYYY IO-format the result would have been: 0099 Note that this differs from the Oracle-meaning of CC (Current Century). In Oracle, the statement: SELECT TO_CHAR(sysdate,'CC') FROM DUAL will, in 1999, result in: 20 The CCYY element cannot be used in combination with one of the following format elements: BC, AD, B.C., A.D., AM, PM, A.M., P.M., SSSSS FM, TH, SP (These format elements are supported on Oracle only).
RR (Oracle only)	In Oracle 7.2 + versions there is a new date format for years. When you specify a date format of DD-MON-RR, (RR replaces YY), upon entering data, Oracle will store the value as either 19YY or 20YY depending on the value entered. If the last two digits of system date are between 0-49 and the specified year you enter is between 0-49, the returned value stored in the database is for the current century. If the specified date is from 50-99, then the return date is the century before the current one. If the last two digits of the system date are from 50-99 and the specified two-digit year is between 0-49, then the return date is the century after the current one, and if the specified date is between 50-99, the return date is for the current century.
Q	Quarter of the year (possible values: 1-4; January- March is 1)
MM	Month (possible values: 01-12; January is 01)
MONTH	Name of the month (padded with blanks to a length of nine characters)
MON	3-letter abbreviation of month
WW	Week of year (possible values: 1-53; the week numbering method depends upon the standard used by the underlying RDBMS. In the case of the commonly used ISO or ANSI standards, week 1 is the first week which includes at least four days in the new year)
W	Week of month (possible values: 1-5; week 1 includes the first day of the month)
DDD	Day of year (possible values: 1-366)
DD	Day of month (possible values: 1-31)
D	Day of week (possible values: 1-7, where 1 is Monday, 7 is Sunday)
DAY	Name of day (padded with blanks to a length of nine characters)
DY	3-letter abbreviation of day
J	Julian day (number of days since January 1, 4712 BC)
AM, or PM	Meridian indicator
HH, or HH12	Hour of day (possible values: 1-12)
HH24	Hour of day (possible values: 0-23)
MI	Minute (possible values: 0-59)
SS	Second (possible values: 0-59)
/ . , .	Specified punctuation is included in the result (see NOTE 1)
"..."	String to be included in the result
$$SHORTDATE$$	See NOTE 2
$$LONGDATE$$	See NOTE 2

NOTE 1: When using a date input format such as DD-MON-YYYY on Oracle, input with different punctuation than specified is also accepted, e.g. "01.JAN.1999" or "01/JAN/1999".

NOTE 2: For DATE fields, instead of specifying a fixed IO format on domain (or Windows Designer) level, you can make the representation format conform to the specification in your operating system environment. This environment usually contains both a short and a long date format.

You can choose between them by specifying $$SHORTDATE$$ or $$LONGDATE$$ as domain IO format.

If you use this IO format, it is also advisable to use the ConvertAlternativeFormat method, or specify an Alternative Input Format, to enable users to enter dates in formats other than the one used for representation. Especially if you use $$LONGDATE$$, which usually includes a spelled week day.

You can adapt the DATE formats in the system environment via the Control Panel/Regional Settings.