Limiting the effect of editing changes

When you use prefix commands to edit data, the changes made are applied to the current record only. When you use primary commands to change data, the changes may be applied to the entire data set. While many of these commands have parameters that allow you to limit the effect of the command, there are several additional methods that you can use to limit the effect of primary commands to only those records that you want to change.

These methods are:

This table has five columns.

Limiting method CHANGE DELETE EXCLUDE FIND
Bounds

Set left and right column bounds.

X   X X
Column ranges

Override the bounds by specifying column numbers on the command.

X   X X
Field list1

Use #n field references to specify the fields to be searched.

X   X X
Excluding records

Use only excluded records, not-excluded records, or both.

X     X
Record ranges

Use record labels to specify a record range.

X X X X
1 SNGL and TABL display formats only.