Guardian Programmer's Guide

Table Of Contents
Using DEFINEs
Guardian Programmer’s Guide 421922-014
7 - 8
DEFINE Attributes
the Spooler Plus Utilites Reference Manual for detailed information about the
CLASS SPOOL DEFINE and its attributes.
You can use a CLASS SEARCH DEFINE name as a parameter to the
FILENAME_RESOLVE_ procedure described in Section 13, Manipulating File
Names.
You can use a CLASS SORT DEFINE name to specify sort parameters
interactively using the RUN FASTSORT command or programmatically as a
parameter to the SORTBUILDPARAM procedure. CLASS SUBSORT DEFINEs
are referred to from a CLASS SORT DEFINE for passing additional parameters.
Refer to the FastSort Manual for detailed information about CLASS SUBSORT
DEFINE and CLASS SORT DEFINE and their attributes.
DEFINE Attributes
A set of attributes is associated with each DEFINE. One attribute associated with
every DEFINE is the CLASS attribute. The CLASS attribute determines which other
attributes can be associated with the DEFINE.
Each attribute has:
An attribute name that you cannot change.
A data type that determines the kind of value you can assign to the attribute.
A value that you assign using procedure calls. Some attributes have default
values.
The following paragraphs describe the possible data types that a DEFINE attribute can
have and the values those attributes can take. For a complete description of each
CLASS DEFINE and each possible attribute, refer to the specific manuals listed under
DEFINE Names on page 7-7.
Attribute Data Types
When you assign a value to an attribute (using the DEFINESETATTR procedure), you
specify the value as a parameter to the procedure call. This parameter must be
declared as type STRING in your program and contain ASCII characters; even if the
attribute is a number, you must pass the number in ASCII representation.
The STRING values that you can specify for a particular DEFINE attribute are
determined by the data type of the DEFINE attribute. When the DEFINESETATTR
procedure is called to assign an attribute value, the system verifies that the STRING
value you specified matches the data type of the attribute.
The available attribute data types are:
string The attribute can contain a string of ASCII characters.
number The attribute can contain an integer. This integer can be preceded by
a plus or minus sign. It must not contain a decimal point.