Associated fields and @AF

[Chad McWilliams]

> Associated fields seem to be one of the lesser
> understood things in filepro - Selection sets are
> another.  I guess it is because these concepts are
> pretty original with filepro - at least as far as I
> know.
> 
> I'm sure there have been articles on the topic of
> associated fields and output processing.  Perhaps
> someone else can direct you to one of these.
> 
> Basically, if you sort a report by an associated field
> - say for example A0)  Then a given record will
> potentially be included in your report multiple times
> - once for each non-blank instance of the field that
> is associated in the A0) group.  If you do this, then
> @af will be "1" if the field is the first in the A0)
> group, "2" if it is the second, etc.
> 
> Also, on the report you can specify *a0) on the detail
> line, and also *a1)  *a2)  etc.  and all of the @af=1
> records will print on the same line, @af=2 will print
> on the same line, etc.
> 
> This is great if you have for example an item # as a0)
> and a description that goes with it as A1) then you
> will have all of your items sort in the proper order
> if you specify the a0) sort for example, and their
> associated descriptions will print next to them.
> 
> I hope this helps.
> 
> Jeff Harrison
> jeffaharrison at yahoo.com

Well, it worked.  After reading your message a couple of times, I kind
of understand what you are saying, but I guess I don't understand why it
is that way.  I would think that a scan through the table for a value
within the group would fail also.  But it doesn't.  It only failed in
the non-sorted output processing.  I would also think that since it was
able to find the value while doing a scan, it would obviously know which
field it found the value in.  I guess I just have a misconception of the
process.

Thanks for the help.

-Chad McWilliams