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Defining an item Schema DDL
60 U929-J-Z125-9-76
4.2.4 Defining an alphanumeric item of fixed length
⎧PICTURE IS mask-string ⎫
[level-number ]item-name ⎨ ⎬.
⎩TYPE IS CHARACTER integer⎭
Alphanumeric items can contain any type of character.
level-number denotes whether the item is part of a repeating group: If the item is not to be
part of a repeating group, the specified level number should be the smallest level number
in the whole record type. This is especially important if the item is to be used as a key item.
If the item is to be part of a repeating group, proceed as described on page 66.
item-name specifies the name assigned by the user.
mask-string may consist of the following symbols:
The first symbol in a mask string must be A or X. (A mask string beginning with 9 defines a
numeric item.)
The item can be defined for a maximum of 255 characters. The digit symbol may not be
repeated more than 18 times and the mask string may consist of no more than 30
characters.
Symbol Designation Explanation
X
stands for a storage location containing any
character of the character set.
A
stands for a storage location containing a letter or
a blank. UDS/SQL does not distinguish between A
and X however.
9 Digit symbol
stands for a storage location containing a digit.
9 may not stand to the left of A or X.
(integer) Repetition symbol
Each of the X, A or 9 symbols can be repeated.
To do this, the user can either write the symbols the
desired number of times or add a repetition factor
integer after the symbol to denote the number of
times the symbol is to be repeated.
The default value is 1; the maximum value is 18 for
9 and 255 for X and A.
Table 5: Symbols of mask-string when defining an alphanumeric item of fixed length