Introduction to ENFORM

Five Easy Steps to Using ENFORM
Using ENFORM—The Basics
2–4 058051 Tandem Computers Incorporated
Figure 2-5 also introduces four terms that will be used in the rest of this publication:
fields, records, files, and items.
A field is a stored area for one item of information. Fields have names and occupy a
specific location in relation to other fields. In Figure 2-5, the field names are the names
∆numbers for different parts in the database. Records are groups of fields. Each
record is named and occupies a specific location in relation to other records. In Figure
2-5, each record is a row in the table and contains information related to a specific part.
A file is a collection of records; it is named and contains data about a group of related
items; for example, parts. An item is something that ultimately appears on a report; it
can be a related field, a group of fields, or a derived item that is temporarily created by
ENFORM while producing your report; for example, the sum of two fields.
The following pages discuss the ENFORM language specifications that enable you to
produce a report and the “Using ENFORM To Produce Complete Reports” section of
this publication concentrates, in more detail, on the major tasks involved in producing
a report.