Variable binding in DISPLAY ARRAY

The DISPLAY ARRAY statement binds the members of the array of record to the screen array fields specified with the TO keyword. Array members and screen array fields are bound by position (not by name). The number of members in the program array must match the number of fields in the screen record (that is, in a single row of the screen array).

SCHEMA stock
DEFINE cust_arr DYNAMIC ARRAY OF customer.*
...
DISPLAY ARRAY cust_arr TO sr.*
        ATTRIBUTES(UNBUFFERED)
   ...
END DISPLAY

The array is usually defined with a flat list of members with

ARRAY OF RECORD /
END RECORD

. However, the array can be structured with sub-records and still be used with a DISPLAY ARRAY dialog. This is especially useful when you need to define arrays from database tables, and additional information needs to be managed at runtime (for example to hold image resource for each row, to be displayed with the IMAGECOLUMN attribute):

SCHEMA shop
DEFINE a_items DYNAMIC ARRAY OF RECORD
                   item_data RECORD LIKE items.*,
                   it_image STRING,
                   it_count INTEGER
               END RECORD
...
DISPLAY ARRAY a_items TO sr.*
   ...

When using the UNBUFFERED attribute, the instruction is sensitive to program variable changes. This means that you do not have to DISPLAY the values; setting the program variable used by the dialog automatically displays the data in the corresponding form field.

ON ACTION change 
   LET arr[arr_curr()].field1 = newValue()

If the program array has the same structure as a database table (this is the case when the array is defined with a DEFINE LIKE clause), you may not want to display/use some of the columns. You can achieve this by using PHANTOM fields in the screen array definition. Phantom fields will only be used to bind program variables, and will not be transmitted to the front-end for display.