Specifying an EDM Field’s Length and Format

Once a field is defined for an object in the Enterprise Data Manager file, you can change the number of characters that can be entered for the field in the EDM. You can also specify whether to automatically enter punctuation into a field on the EDM, but remove the punctuation in the database. If you modify the field's length and format in the object structure using the Configuration Editor, the Enterprise Data Manager file is automatically updated as well.

Field length here is constrained by the length of the database column containing the field and the length defined in the Object Definition file.

To Modify a Field’s Length and Format

1. In the Projects window, expand the Configuration node in the project you want to modify, and then double-click the Enterprise Data Manager file.

   The file opens in the NetBeans XML editor.

2. Scroll to the node element that defines the object containing the field you want to modify.

3. Scroll to the field element you want to modify.

4. To modify the length of a field, change the value of the max-length element.

   For example:

   <max-length>100</max-length>

5. To modify the format of the field, change the value of the input-mask and value-mask elements.

   If these element do not exist for the field, create new input-mask and value-mask elements. For example:

   <input-mask>(DDD)DDD-DDDD</input-mask> <value-mask>xDDDxDDDxDDDD</value-mask>

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   Note –

   If an input mask is defined, in most cases a value mask must also be defined. For information about input and value masks, see EDM Field Configuration Elements.

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6. Save and close the file.