CREATE VIEW

Class

Terminal Developer Development Tools

Purpose

Activate the View Designer

Syntax

CREATE VIEW <filename> | (<expC>) [FROM ENVIRONMENT]

See Also

CREATE BRIDGE, CREATE SCREEN, DIALOG GET, FMT(), Function Keys, INDEX, MODIFY SCREEN, SET FORMAT, SET INDEX, SET ORDER, SET RELATION, SET VIEW, USE

Description

The CREATE VIEW command activates the full screen View Designer which is used to create a view file, which can be processed using the SET VIEW TO command. View files allow you to treat multiple databases and their associated files as a single object. Views are very useful for performing ad-hoc queries on data that is in multiple related databases.

<filename> | (<expC>)

The file name can be substituted with a <expC>, enclosed in round brackets, which returns a valid filename. If no file extension is specified, then '.vue' is used.

FROM ENVIRONMENT

If the optional FROM ENVIRONMENT clause is specified, a view file is automatically created for the established environment.

Without the FROM ENVIRONMENT clause, the CREATE VIEW command displays a screen for each workarea (1–10), prompting for the following details:

Field	Description
Database	The name of the table to be opened in this workarea
Alias	The alias name for the table. By default this is the workarea letter A-J
Format	The screen format file to be used. (CREATE SCREEN, SET FORMAT)
Index (1-7)	The names of up to seven single index files (.ndx)
Filter	The filter expression for the table
Relation to	The name of a field in the current table used to link to another table
Into	The name of the table that is the target of the relation

The menubar for the View Designer can be activated by pressing the [MENUBAR] key. The following options are available:

Menu	Description
Workarea	Displays a DIALOG GET to specify the workarea number (1-10) to select
Databases	Displays a popup choicelist of tables in the current directory
Formats	Displays a popup choicelist of screen format files in the current directory
Indexes	Displays a popup choicelist of single index files in the current directory
Query	Displays a popup query builder. This is used for constructing a filter expression
Help	Displays the on-line help system

A specific view file can be opened directly using the SET VIEW TO <filename> command, or by creating a VIEW BRIDGE with the CREATE BRIDGE command then issuing the USE <view bridge> command.

All Recital products support the SQL CREATE VIEW command. This creates a logical view of one or more tables based on a SELECT statement. Please see the SQL documentation for further information.

Example

create view patrons
set view to patrons

Products

Recital Terminal Developer