V

VAL(expC)

Data Format Returned: Numeric

Converts a character string to a numeric value. Not fully compatible with FH Enterprise.

VAL() is partially functional in FH Enterprise when used in queries. If VAL() is specified for a query field using a custom expression, FH Enterprise performs a two stage query - after the query runs on the server and the results are sent to the client, the second stage is run to convert values from character to numeric.

If a query was created in standard FH and then upsized, access the query and re-save it to create the two-stage query.  

VAL( ) can be used to convert character fields. This is helpful when the field is used for sorting.

Parameters

Variable Description
expC

Specifies the character expression to convert to numeric.

Note: VAL() stops converting when a letter is encountered.

Example: VAL() returns '38' if the value was '38M', but returns a zero if the value was 'M38'.

Valcode(cCategory,cCode,lQuiet,lRequired)

Data Format Returned: Numeric

Validates a single code against a lookup table. Valcode() does not work for complex validations like street or city/state/zip (which have multiple values that are validated). It validates only simple single "codes."

Parameters

Variable Description
cCategory

The name of the lookup table category that contains the code you want to validate. These are all in the table LKP_CAT. Incident type is INCI TYPE. The value should be in upper case.

cCode

The actual code value you want to validate.

lQuiet

Should normally be passed as true. If you do not pass it as true or don't pass it at all and the validation fails, a message box is displayed.

lRequired

If passed as .T. a blank cCode value is not allowed. Normally blank values are allowed, and if cCode is blank true is immediately returned.

Valcode() is used in the example below to tell an external data import definition to only enter a value in a field if the value matches a code in the FH lookup table. INCI TYPE is the lookup category, and the import definition is importing an ASCII comma-delimited import where the value of Inci_type field is coming from data(4) in the source file.

For the import field definition for INCI_TYPE, use a custom expression as follows:

IIF(ValCode("INCI TYPE",data(4),.T.),data(4),"")

This expression returns the value of data(4) only if ValCode returns true (indicating it is a valid incident type), otherwise an empty string is returned, leaving the target field blank.

VendorName(expC)

Data Format Returned: X

Returns the name of a vendor given a vendor ID.

Parameters

Variable Status Description
expC Required Vendor ID to return name of.