PROGRAM attribute

The PROGRAM attribute can specify an external application program to edit TEXT or BYTE fields.

Syntax

PROGRAM = "editor"
  1. editor is the name of the program that must be used to edit the special field data.

Usage

You can assign the PROGRAM attribute to a TEXT or BYTE field to call an external program to work with the BYTE or TEXT values.

This attribute works in TUI mode only.

Users can invoke the external program by pressing the exclamation point (!) key while the screen cursor is in the field.

The external program then takes over control of the screen. When the user exits from the external program, the form is redisplayed with any display attributes besides PROGRAM in effect.

When no PROGRAM attribute is used, the DBEDIT environment variable defines the default editor.