Using Family Options

Family options include:

  • Smart punctuation

  • Make uppercase

Smart Punctuation

Smart punctuation automatically adds or removes punctuation characters to the data that users enter. For instance, if you enter a phone number, 8005551212 and press the tab key to exit the entry field, the system reformats the value as 800-555-1212.

The system uses the punctuation characters specified in the punctuation list to strip out unwanted input and to modify the pattern specified before applying the pattern to the data.

Note:

Smart punctuation and the standard set of characters are enabled by default.

You can modify the standard set of characters by selecting Custom in the options drop-down list box and typing another set of punctuation characters to use. Smart punctuation processes the characters defined in the standard set or custom set as follows:

  • The input has all characters in the punctuation set stripped out—similar to ignoring white spaces.

  • The pattern has all characters in the punctuation set expanded if they are not found in the input.

    To do this, enclose each punctuation character in the punctuation set with "[ punc_char]!".

  • The formatter runs on the modified data to apply the modified pattern.

WARNING:

Use meta characters and lexical characters in the punctuation sets with caution. Step 2 of the transformation process modifies the format pattern so that PeopleSoft Application Designer might sometimes convert special characters to literals (when they are inside the left or right brace).

For example:

  • Input: (800)555-1212.

  • Display pattern: 999-999-9999.

  • Punctuation set: ()-.

  • Stored pattern: 999999999.

  • The "(" , ")", and "-"are stripped out of the input because they appear in the punctuation set.

    Now the input looks as follows: 8005551212.

The display pattern is modified to 999[-]!999[-]!9999 because "-" is in the punctuation set. The transformed data (8005551212) is matched against the display pattern of 999[-]!999[-]!9999. The match is successful, so the raw data is transformed into 800-555-1212.

Now, the input data has successfully matched the expected display format. The next step is to transform this data into what we want stored. In this case, the stored format has no dashes, as in 999999999.

The transformed data (800-555-1212) is stripped of the smart punctuation characters (8005551212), and the pattern of the stored format is 999999999. A match is made so that the system stores 8005551212 in the database.

Finally, the stored data is reformatted back to the display using 8005551212 and the display pattern. Output to the display is reformatted to 800-555-1212.

Make Uppercase

Custom format fields support mixed case. With uppercase activated, PeopleSoft Application Designer transforms the data into uppercase when you press the tab key to exit the field.