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Scalar/non-scalar field links

A simple link cannot copy information from a non-scalar field (composed of more than one data element of the same type) to a scalar field (composed of a single data element). For example, information from a record in the incident file cannot be projected into a probsummary record. Even though the field names are the same, the fields in the incident record are not scalar fields. They exist in one of the three structures that make up the problem table descriptor. The fully-qualified name of the assignment field in the incident record is really header,assignment.

The system can project the logical.name value in the incident file into the incident record’s logical.name field. It cannot project the incident file’s non-scalar middle,logical.name field into the scalar logical.name field in the incident file. To copy non-scalar information to a scalar field, the Fill operation copies each field using instructions in the link record.