ON APPEND block

Similar to the ON INSERT control block, the ON APPEND trigger can be used to enable row creation during a DISPLAY ARRAY dialog. If this block is defined, the dialog will automatically create the append action. This action can be decorated, enabled and disabled as a regular action.

If the dialog defines an ON ACTION append interaction block and the ON APPEND block is used, the compiler will stop with error -8408.

When the user fires the append action, the dialog first executes the user code of the AFTER ROW block if defined. Then the dialog moves to the end of the list, and creates a new row after the last existing row. After creating the row, the dialog executes the user code of the ON APPEND block.

The dialog handles only row creation actions and navigation, you must program the record input with a regular INPUT statement, to let the end user enter data for the newly-created row. This is typically done with an INPUT binding explicitly array fields to the screen record fields. The new current row in the program array is identified with arr_curr(), and the current screen line in the form is defined by SCR_LINE():
DISPLAY ARRAY arr TO sr.*
  ...
  ON APPEND
    INPUT arr[arr_curr()].* FROM sr[scr_line()].* ;
    ...

Pay attention to the semicolon ending the INPUT instruction, which is usually needed here to solve a language grammar conflict when nested dialog instructions are implemented.

After the user code is executed, the dialog gets the control back and processes the new row as follows:

  • If the INT_FLAG global variable is FALSE and STATUS is zero, the new row is kept in the program array, and the BEFORE ROW block is executed for the newly-created row.
  • If the INT_FLAG global variable is TRUE or STATUS is different from zero, the new row is removed from the program array, and the BEFORE ROW block is executed for the row that existed at the current position, before the new row was created.

The DISPLAY ARRAY dialog always resets INT_FLAG to FALSE and STATUS to zero before executing the user code of the ON APPEND block.

The append action is disabled if the maximum number of rows is reached.

If needed, the ON APPEND handler can be configured with action attributes by added an ATTRIBUTES() clause, as with user-defined action handlers:
  ON APPEND ATTRIBUTES(TEXT=%"custlist.delete", IMAGE="listdel")