NET/MASTER Network Control Language (NCL) Reference Manual

#FLD

Panel Control Statements

106126 Tandem Computers Incorporated 6–21

VALIGN

specifies the type of alignment of data you require for an individual variable in an

output field. The length of the variable name itself dictates the manner in which

alignment takes place. Do not confuse this with the option JUST, which applies to

field alignment after all variable substitution has been completed, and which takes

no account of the length of the variable name. VALIGN is designed to facilitate

tabular output without the need to specify many individual field characters on the

panel.

When NCL replaces the variable name with the data assigned to that variable, no

additional blanks are created or removed during this substitution process. Thus, if

the data being substituted is shorter than the name of the variable, then any data

after the variable name is shifted left to occupy the area remaining after the

removal of the variable name. This would destroy any tabular alignment if the

length of the data for each variable differed.

VALIGN ensures that the data to the right of the variable is not shifted to the left,

if the data being substituted is shorter than the variable name. The length of the

variable name (including the ampersand) is the important factor; it determines the

number of character positions to be preserved during the substitution process.

Truncation of data does not take place. If the data being substituted is longer than

the variable name, the data to the right is moved to accommodate all the

substituted data. VALIGN works in conjunction with the character specified as

the PAD character. The pad character is used to fill any difference between the

data being substituted and the length of the variable name being replaced.

CENTER

specifies that you want the data to be centered with padding to both left and

right.

LEFT

specifies that you want alignment of data to the left and padding to the right.

specifies that you want no alignment or padding to be performed.

RIGHT

specifies that you want alignment of data to the right and padding to the left.