These attributes affect how to manage data associated with the object:

  • SCREEN-VALUE — There is a special screen buffer that holds the displayed values of all data-representation objects in a frame. This buffer is separate from the underlying database record buffer for database fields and from the buffer where variable values are held. If a user enters a value into a field on the screen, that value is not assigned to the underlying record buffer until you execute an ASSIGN statement for the field. In the meantime, the input value is held only in the screen buffer. You can retrieve a value from the screen buffer using the SCREEN-VALUE attribute, which is a CHARACTER value representing the value as it appears on the screen, or as it would appear on the screen in a fill-in field. You can also set the SCREEN-VALUE attribute of an object to display a value without setting the underlying record value. It is important to remember that the value of the SCREEN-VALUE attribute is always the formatted value as it appears in the user interface. If this contains special format mask characters (such as commas and decimal points in a decimal value, for example), then any comparisons you do against this string must include those format characters. If this presents problems, you must assign the screen value to its underlying record buffer and reference the BUFFER-VALUE of the field to access it in its native data type and without format characters.
    Note: The INPUT-VALUE attribute provides the capability to access the unformatted value.
  • INITIAL — This attribute holds the initial value of a data-representation object. You can set it only in the DEFINE statement.