Comment Format

All comment records in the system are stored in the Comment File (File 164).  A centralized Comment data file is used in order to optimize programming efficiency and save disk space.

Each record in the Comment file contains some fixed length fields.  These include the source code, ident, and comment line fields which are used to associate the comment  record with the appropriate other data records in the system.  Each comment also contains one variable length text field which is used to store the note or comment itself.  The source field and the ident and comment line fields are loaded into the comment record when it is first created and they are not normally changed afterwards.  Each comment records also contain some date fields and fields which store operator information.  These fields are used to identify when the comment was created or last edited and who it was created or last edited by.

The source codes, ident information and line numbering information used for the various comment types in the system are presented later in this document.

Static data records may have several different comments attached to them.  For this reason, the first line in the text field of  a static data comment is normally used as the comment title.  This title is displayed to the operator when listing the comments associated with the static record.  The date which is normally displayed to the left of each static data title is the date that the comment was last edited. This date is updated automatically by the system each time a comment is edited.

If the comment record is attached to a transaction record, the first line of the text field in the comment record  is normally used for the note as ain this case a title is not required (an order header comment is an order header comment and the text is what matters).

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Comment Accelerator keys