Enform Plus Reference Manual

Enform Plus Language Elements

Enform Plus Reference Manual—422684-001

3-4

Special Characters

Table 3-2 lists the Enform Plus special characters and describes their functions within a

query.

Comments

A comment clarifies and documents the purpose of the your query. A comment is

denoted by the exclamation character (!). A comment can be the only text on a line, the

last text on a line, or text embedded within a line. When a comment is embedded within

a line, it must be enclosed with exclamation marks. For example, consider the following

comments:

!This query produces Finance Report 301

DICTIONARY finance.subvol; ! Information is confidential

OPEN finance1, !Only two files are needed! finance2;

Statements

Statements contain specifications for selecting and formatting elements from your

database. Composed of keywords, clauses, and target-lists, the Enform Plus statements

LIST and FIND provide the basic specifications for information selection. Additional

statements establish the query environment and provide some report structuring

capability.

Table 3-2. Special Characters

Character Name Character Description

Apostrophe ' Serves as a delimiter for display formats, some

conditional operators.

Assignment syntax := Assigns a value to a target-item.

Blank Separates keywords and other language elements.

Brackets [ ] Delimits subscripts, modifiers, and decorations. Must

appear in balanced pairs.

Comma , Separates multiple query specifications in the same

statement; always optional.

Parentheses ( ) Delimits various language elements. Must appear in

balanced pairs.

Question mark ? Denotes a command when directly followed by a

keyword.

Quotation mark " Serves as delimiter for various language elements, such

as alphanumeric literals, and some display formats.

Semicolon ; Terminates statements.