Data Definition Language (DDL) Reference Manual (G06.24+)

Definition Attributes
Data Definition Language (DDL) Reference Manual—426798-002
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HELP Clause
HELP Clause
The HELP clause enables you to associate help text with a group or elementary item in
a DEFINITION or a RECORD statement.
DDL ignores the HELP clause when generating host-language source code.
help-text
is any ASCII or national string enclosed in quotation marks.
constant-name
is the name of a constant in the open DDL dictionary. The constant value must be
a valid help-text value.
HELP Clause Guidelines
The following points are guidelines for using the HELP clause:
•
Single lines of text should not exceed 77 characters if you plan to generate a
Pathmaker application; help text must be less than or equal to 77 characters to fit
on a Pathmaker screen. If a single line of text does exceed 77 characters, you will
receive a warning message.
•
The ASCII quotation mark character (") can be represented within a help text string
by using two consecutive quotation marks ("").
•
Help text appears on DDL schema listings. Help text is displayed on the screen
when an end user requests help from NonStop™ Transaction Services/MP
(NonStop™ TS/MP) applications generated by the Pathmaker product.
•
Use of a comma between help text strings is optional. If you do not use a comma,
you must delimit consecutive help strings by blanks or carriage returns.
•
Help text cannot be specified for any of these:
°
Level 66 RENAMES clauses
°
Level 88 condition-name clauses
°
Record names
°
File creation information
•
If a definition or record that includes help text refers to a definition that also
includes help text, the help text in the referring definition or record overrides the
help text in the referenced definition.
HELP { "help-text" | constant-name }
[ [ , ] "help-text" | [ , ] constant-name ] ...