Searching the Help
To search for information in the Help, type a word or phrase in the Search box. When you enter a group of words, OR is inferred. You can use Boolean operators to refine your search.
Results returned are case insensitive. However, results ranking takes case into account and assigns higher scores to case matches. Therefore, a search for "cats" followed by a search for "Cats" would return the same number of Help topics, but the order in which the topics are listed would be different.
Words and Phrases
| Search for | Example | Results |
|---|---|---|
| A single word | cat
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Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats". |
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A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase. |
"cat food" (quotation marks) |
Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase. |
Using Boolean Operators
| Search for | Operator | Example |
|---|---|---|
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Two or more words in the same topic |
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| Either word in a topic |
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| Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase |
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| Topics that contain one string and do not contain another | ^ (caret) |
cat ^ mouse
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| A combination of search types | ( ) parentheses |
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Data type: Array
The array data type is a compound data type represented by the number 8 in the database dictionary. Arrays store a list of elements of the same data type accessed by an index (element) number. The term array is synonymous with the terms list, vector, and sequence. Elements in arrays can be of any data types (including arrays or structures). A fully qualified array name (array field in $file) can be used in place of an array variable. The number of items in an array can vary and does not have to be allocated in advance. Arrays are delimited by curly braces ({ }). The following table shows some examples.
| Description | Literal examples |
|---|---|
| Numeric | {1,2,3} |
| Character | {"a","b","c","f","e","h"} |
| Boolean | {true, true, unknown} |
| Time | {'12/7/42 00:00', '1/3/62 00:00'} |
| Nested | {{1,2},{3,4}} |
| Structures | {{[1,"a"]},{[2,"b"]}} {{[1,"a",true]},{[2,"b",false]},{[3,"c",unknown]}} |
| Empty | {} |
You can use either of the following equivalent syntaxes to access an element in an array:
- $array[element_number]
- element_number in $array
For example, to extract the value of the first customer number (2753) in the array $customer with value {2753, 2842, 2963}, use any of the following equivalent syntaxes:
- 1 in $customer
- $customer[1]
If the accessed array element does not exist, the element is created and set to NULL. This effectively extends the array. To insert a value into an array use the insert RAD function. To delete an element from an array, use the delete RAD function.
Tip You can use the denull RAD function to remove any null values from the end of an array before assigning the array to a record or adding it to the database.
