User's Manual

DPC/TRACK
Users Manual
7-20
Notice that the “0” following the insertion point was simply shifted to the
right two spaces since we entered two characters. Upon leaving the field, the
display format reflects the new value and returns the % symbol to our view.
Tolerance 2.003%
So what happened to the “8” we entered? This question leads us to another
important concept for Number fields—resolution. For the Tolerance field
shown above, the resolution was defined to only include three decimal places
to the right of the decimal. Since the “8” was beyond the resolution of the
field (it was in the fourth decimal place), it was dropped and the preceding
“2” was rounded up to “3”.
Note that if the resolution of the Tolerance field had been defined to track
data in the fourth decimal place as well, the value we entered would actually
be stored as “2.0028” instead of “2.003”. However, unless the display format
was also changed to reflect the fourth decimal place, we would still only see
the value “2.003%” until we selected the field, at which time we would see
the stored value of “2.0028”. In this case, if we were to perform a Quick
Search for all records whose Tolerance field contained the value “2.003”,
the record in which we entered the value of “2.0028” would not be found,
even though “2.003” is the value that appears in the field when not selected.
Further note that different Number fields usually (but don’t necessarily) have
different display formats, edit formats, and resolutions. Also, some Number
fields may display data using engineering or scientific notation. You cannot
change the resolution of the display format for Number fields. You can,
however, change the edit format via the DPCTRACK.INI file. (See Appendix
A, “The DPCTRACK.INI File.”)
Date
Obviously, a Date field is intended to store and display date type data. The
display format for a Date field is specific to that field’s definition. A Date
field may be defined to only accept data greater than some minimum or less
than some maximum date. You will receive an error message should you
attempt to enter an invalid date.
After selecting a Date field, you may move the cursor within the field using
the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard. When data is entered at a
particular position within the field, all data to the right of that position shifts
to the right as necessary; data is not overwritten. To overwrite data, drag over
the desired characters before entering new data. The Home and End keys
move the cursor to the beginning and end of the data, respectively.