Changing the attributes for a numeric field

You use the numeric Field Attributes panel to change attributes for a numeric field or set the pattern for created fields.

To change the output width, enter the new width into the Output width field. The output width is the number of character positions used by edit, view, and print panels to show the field in TABL display or print format. The default output width is the maximum of the number of characters needed to show the field heading (or field name, if no heading is specified), and the number of characters needed to show the value of the field, as determined from the field definition, including a sign character and decimal point.

The allowable widths are six to 30 characters.

To display leading zeros on numeric fields in SNGL and TABL display format, enter YES in the Leading zeros field. The default is NO (suppress leading zeros).

The following figure demonstrates how field headings and output widths affect the column width display.
Figure 1. Data set displayed using field headings and output width adjustment
⋮
Type   NAME                   Emp #     AGE   SALARY Mth(1) Mth(2) Mth(3)
#2     #3                        #4      #5       #6     #7     #7     #7
AN 1:2 AN 3:20              BI 23:2 BI 25:2  PD 27:4 BI 31: BI 35: BI 39:
<>     <---+----1----+----> <---+-> <---+-> <---+--> <---+> <---+> <---+>
****  Top of data  ****
01     Grant Smith             7712      35    75000      6     15     42
01     Andrew Apple            6645      53    78500     30     22     46
⋮

You can set any field less than 4 bytes long to be the length field during a segmented template edit. You can specify the length as inclusive or exclusive. If a non-blank value is provided, then the segment length is determined from the binary value contained in the field, and for exclusive fields the field length is added to this value.