BEFORE ROW block

BEFORE ROW block in singular and parallel DISPLAY ARRAY, INPUT ARRAY dialogs

In a singular DISPLAY ARRAY, INPUT ARRAY instruction, or when used as parallel dialog, the BEFORE ROW block is executed each time the user moves to another row. This trigger can also be executed in other situations, such as when you delete a row, or when the user tries to insert a row but the maximum number of rows in the list is reached.

You typically do some dialog setup / message display in the BEFORE ROW block, because it indicates that the user selected a new row or entered in the list.

When the dialog starts, BEFORE ROW will be executed for the current row, but only if there are data rows in the array.

When called in this block, DIALOG.getCurrentRow() / arr_curr() return the index of the current row.

In this example, the BEFORE ROW block gets the new row number and displays it in a message:

DISPLAY ARRAY ...
   ...
   BEFORE ROW
     MESSAGE "We are on row # ", arr_curr()
   ...

BEFORE ROW block in DISPLAY ARRAY and INPUT ARRAY of procedural DIALOG

In an INPUT or INPUT ARRAY sub-dialog of a procedural DIALOG instruction, the BEFORE ROW block is executed when a DISPLAY ARRAY or INPUT ARRAY list gets the focus, or when the user moves to another row inside a list. This trigger can also be executed in other situations, for example when you delete a row, or when the user tries to insert a row but the maximum number of rows in the list is reached.

You typically do some dialog setup / message display in the BEFORE ROW block, because it indicates that the user selected a new row. Do not use this trigger to detect focus changes; Use the BEFORE DISPLAY or BEFORE INPUT blocks instead.

In DISPLAY ARRAY, BEFORE ROW is executed after the BEFORE DISPLAY block. In INPUT ARRAY, BEFORE ROW is executed before the BEFORE INSERT and BEFORE FIELD blocks and after the BEFORE INPUT blocks.

When the procedural dialog starts, BEFORE ROW will only be executed if the list has received the focus and there is a current row (the array is not empty). If you have other elements in the form which can get the focus before the list, BEFORE ROW will not be triggered when the dialog starts. You must pay attention to this, because this behavior is different to the behavior of singular DISPLAY ARRAY or INPUT ARRAY. In singular dialogs, the BEFORE ROW block is always executed when the dialog starts (and there are rows in the array).

When called in this block, DIALOG.getCurrentRow() / arr_curr() return the index of the current row.

In this example the BEFORE ROW block displays a message with the current row number:

   DISPLAY ARRAY p_items TO s_items.*
     BEFORE ROW
       MESSAGE "We are in items, on row #", DIALOG.getCurrentRow("s_items")