The standard data types supported by DP4 are:
Type |
Code |
Description |
Character |
C |
A string of ASCII characters |
Date |
D |
A field used to store the year, month and day |
Integer |
I |
Standard 2-byte signed integer, with the low-order byte first |
Long integer |
L |
A 4-byte signed integer with the low word first. This is the format used by most compilers which support 32-bit integers |
Mixed case |
M |
A field like the C character type, except that this type is not case sensitive in indexes, and so "SMITH" and "smith" appear next to each other in an index |
Number |
N |
DP4 implements this type according to the language format you choose for your database. For example, for the Microsoft C programming language, the IEEE real number system is used |
Pseudo numeric |
P |
A character field composed only of the characters '0..9' and '.' |
Time |
T |
A field composed of hours, minutes, seconds and hundredths of seconds |
Boolean (Yes/No) |
Y |
A field for which only two values are allowed, for example "Yes" and "No" |
Upper case |
U |
A character field suited for use as a key field. You can change the collate sequence of U type characters. This facility is used for national language support and to indicate the precedence of non-alphabetic characters such as @ and # |
You can change the way each field type is entered and displayed on your database. Although the fields are always stored in the same way, the entry and display is user-specific. For example, for the date field, you can specify the order of the day, month and year parts, and whether the month is shown as a name or a number.