WITHOUT DEFAULTS attribute

An INPUT with the WITHOUT DEFAULTS attribute allows the user to make changes to an existing program record representing a row in the database.

If the WITHOUT DEFAULTS clause is not used by the INPUT statement, the form fields are initialized with the DEFAULT values of the form specification file. This behavior is not much used, because you typically want to set default values in the programe code. Especially to update an existing row of the SQL table.

Note however that the REQUIRED attribute is ignored when WITHOUT DEFAULTS is TRUE. If you want to use REQUIRED, for example to force the end user to visit all required fields and fire the AFTER FIELD trigger to validate the entered data, you can turn off or on the WITHOUT DEFAULTS attribute according to the need, by using a Boolean expression.

The NOT NULL attribute is always checked when it is defined for a form field, no matter the WITHOUT DEFAULTS clause usage.