Understand Clear Screen Input

The Clear Screen Input option lets you pass data to a procedure without having to first display the associated screen.
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Clear Screen Input Overview

Clear Screen Input passes the unformatted input to a procedure when the procedure step is initially invoked. This eliminates displaying the formatted empty screen.
  • You cannot pass unformatted input to procedure steps without display screen or window.
  • The parameter list cannot exceed 32K.
  • The mapping of Clear Screen Input to attributes in the Import View is available only with Block Mode screens. For GUI, ASP.NET, and Web Generation applications, the Clear Screen Input is available to the procedure action diagram in the Command field. Any parsing of the Clear Screen Input to other views must be done logically within the action diagram.
  • Clear Screen Input for GUI, ASP.NET, and Web Generation applications is passed into a Procedure Step Action Diagram in the Command field with length up to 80 characters. If the Command is not reset prior to its use between client and server, it is truncated to 8 characters.
  • A procedure step that is invoked with Clear Screen Input processes as "Execute First." The option for executing first without any data is applicable only to the screens and not to GUI or Web applications.
  • Clear Screen Input helps you reduce execution costs and time by providing a short cut to invoking a procedure. Experienced users can employ this option to allow a program that is generated outside
    Gen
    to access
    Gen
    -generated program.
  • Check your operating system, business system, and language compiler defaults before using double quotation marks as string separators. For more information, see Clear Screen Input Delimiters and Data Separators.
For example, to invoke a List Customer procedure, an operator can ordinarily perform the following steps:
  1. Type transaction code (assigned during the Construction phase) press ENTER.
  2. The screen that is associated with List Customers displays with no values in its fields.
  3. The operator enters a value in the Starting Customer Name field and presses ENTER.
  4. The screen that is associated with List Customer displays again, this time filled in with customer names and phone numbers.
However, it is more convenient for frequent users of List Customers to type the trancode, followed by a value for Starting Customer Name on a clear screen. The screen that is associated with List Customers displays with customer names and phone numbers filled in.
The second alternative is made available by using the Clear Screen Input feature of
Gen
. To access the Clear Screen input Diagram, select a procedure or procedure step in the Dialog Flow Diagram and click Detail, Clear Screen Input.

Clear Screen Input Delimiters and Data Separators

If when using Clear Screen Input, input data contain business system defaults separators or delimiters, the defaults must be changed to suit the data and input style desired. Do not set or use operating system-specific separators such as double quotes " ". The system parses away the default delimiters before passing data to programs. When this happens, program operation is unpredictable. Here are some options that you can try to correct the problem:
  • Use single quotes or equally appropriate separator,
  • Change default delimiter from spaces to commas if spaces are part of input data,
  • If double quotes must be used, prefix each quote with a backslash "\" character. This character bypasses the system C-language parsing of double quotes.