Welcome
Developing
Developing EGL applications
Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) is a programming language that you can use to focus on business problems instead of software technologies. Within the Rational® development environment, you can use EGL wizards and other tools to write complex applications with minimal effort.
EGL Language Reference
The EGL Language Reference covers the fundamental use of the language, including its concepts, syntax, and keywords. This volume is intended for a developer writing EGL applications with some experience in procedural programming.
Applications with user interfaces
Common UI properties
spacesBetweenColumns

Overview
Getting started
Installing
Upgrading and migrating
EGL Code Accelerator for IBD
Developing
- Model driven development of EGL code
- Generating source code from UML models
  You can use transformations to create source code from a UML model. First you must create a transformation parameters file and then apply those parameters to a model.
- Generating the EGL Dependency Graph from EGL projects
- Generating Source Code from OpenAPI Documents
- Developing EGL applications
  Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) is a programming language that you can use to focus on business problems instead of software technologies. Within the Rational® development environment, you can use EGL wizards and other tools to write complex applications with minimal effort.
  - How to use this documentation
  - Additional information about EGL
    The most recent EGL documentation is in the IBM Business Developer documentation.
  - EGL Programmer's Guide
    The EGL Programmer's Guide covers using EGL within the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE), as well as some of the common programming tasks that EGL developers perform.
  - EGL Generation Guide
    The EGL Generation Guide covers the process of converting EGL code to Java™ or COBOL source code, including the processes and the files involved. This section is intended for a developer who will generate or deploy EGL applications.
  - EGL Language Reference
    The EGL Language Reference covers the fundamental use of the language, including its concepts, syntax, and keywords. This volume is intended for a developer writing EGL applications with some experience in procedural programming.
    - General syntax
    - System data parts
    - User-defined data parts
    - Logic parts
    - Correspondence between a JSON string and an EGL variable
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to a JavaScript™ Object Notation (JSON) string. Other topics describe the functions (serviceLib.convertFromJSON() and serviceLib.convertToJSON()) that are used by a Rich UI developer to convert JSON data to or from a variable, as may be necessary to access a third-party REST service. A failure in either function causes a RuntimeException.
    - Correspondence between a JSON string and an EGL variable for zOS and IBM i
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) string. This topic describes the functions—serviceLib.convertFromJSON() and serviceLib.convertToJSON()—that are used by an EGL developer to convert JSON data to or from a variable either for zOS or IBM i systems. A failure in either function causes a RuntimeException.
    - Special considerations for JSON support on IBM i:
    - Correspondence between an XML string and an EGL variable
      This topic describes the EGL record that corresponds to an Extensible Markup Language (XML) string. Other topics describe the functions (serviceLib.convertFromXML and serviceLib.convertToXML) that are used by a Rich UI developer to convert XML data to or from a variable, as may be necessary to access a third-party REST service.
    - EGL statements
    - EGL core system libraries and variables
    - Accessing data in EGL
      Whenever you access a data store in EGL, the data goes into a record.
    - Applications with user interfaces
      - Enumerations for user interface properties and fields
      - Common UI statements
      - Common UI properties
        addSpaceForSOSI
        align
        color
        columns
        The columns property specifies the number of columns in which to display the elements of a variable field array.
        dateFormat
        displayName
        fieldLen
        The fieldLen property specifies the number of bytes in a form field. This value does not include the preceding attribute byte.
        formSize
        help
        helpForm
        helpKey
        The helpKey property specifies a function key that the user presses to display help information for a field in a text form.
        highlight
        indexOrientation
        initialized
        inputRequired
        inputRequiredMsgKey
        intensity
        labelKey
        labelText
        lineWrap
        linesBetweenRows
        lowerCase
        masked
        minimumInput
        minimumInputMsgKey
        msgField
        needsSOSI
        numElementsItem for VGUI Records
        position
        protect
        screenSizes
        spacesBetweenColumns
        timeFormat
        timestampFormat
        upperCase
        validationOrder
        validValues
        validValuesMsgKey
        value
        zeroFormat
      - Validation properties
      - Handler part
        A handler typically includes both variables and functions. It is used for basic processing and for user interaction.
      - Rich UI programming model
      - DojoLib
        The DojoLib library includes constants and validation functions used by the EGL Dojo widgets. The library is not a system library, and its use has prerequisites.
      - DojoMobileLib
        The DojoMobileLib widget defines constants that are used by EGL Dojo mobile widgets.
      - Reference to widgets
      - EGL reports
      - Text UI
        A text UI application presents a text-based user interface similar to that of a 5250 or 3270 terminal.
      - Web transaction support in EGL
        Use EGL web transactions to migrate VisualAge® Generator web transactions to EGL.
    - VisualAge® Generator compatibility
    - Appendices
    - Importing product-supplied projects
      You can click a link to download the current version of Rich UI projects. The capability is useful if you deleted a project or want a clean version.
  - Rational® COBOL Runtime Guide for zSeries®
    This manual provides information about customizing and administering the IBM® Rational® COBOL Runtime.
  - IBM Business Developer EGL Server Guide for IBM® i
    This manual provides information about customizing and administering EGL Server for IBM® i on the host.
  - Generation for VSE Feature Reference
    This reference manual provides z/VSE-specific information about developing and generating EGL programs in the VSE environment.
- Source code analysis with code review
  With code review, you can create configurations of coding rules for EGL source code. You can then run the configurations to check the source code for consistency with the rules.
- Responsive Design Support in IBD
  What is Responsive Design? Responsive design is an approach for creation of web pages that automatically scales its content and elements to match the screen size on which it is viewed. So, instead of designing multiple websites for different devices with variable screen sizes, we can design just one website that scales up or down automatically, to match the device it’s being viewed on.
- Containerizing an EGL RUI Application
Samples
Troubleshooting and support
EGL runtime error messages
Reference
Glossary
Using the help
Notices for IBM Business Developer documentation

spacesBetweenColumns

The spacesBetweenColumns property specifies the number of spaces separating each column of elements from an array field. The value of the property is an integer literal, variable, or constant.

The following 2-column example shows the display that results with the spacesBetweenColumns property set to 3 and the orientIndexAcross property set to YES:

  1   2
  3   4
  5

This property is meaningful only for arrays. The default value for this property is 1. You cannot update the property at run time.

Compatibility

Table 1. Support for spacesBetweenColumns property
Data item	VGUI record	Console UI	Text Form Java™	Text Form COBOL	Print Form Java™	Print Form COBOL
Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes