Supporting On Demand Business Applications with the IBM Problem Determination Tools (APA, DT, DT with Advanced Facilities, FA, File Export, FM, WS)

Chapter 29. Test data and File Manager 923

29.1.3 Field attributes for template-based data creation

The opportunity to define default values to be used in generated data is available to the user

when File Manager presents the Field Attributes panel, shown in Figure 29-9.

Figure 29-9 Attributes for numeric fields

Numeric values

For numeric fields, the creation attributes are the start and end values, the increment and the

cycle.

The Table 29-1 contains samples illustrating how the values of these attributes affect the

resulting values.

Table 29-1 Attributes for numeric fields

Start End Increment. Cycle Generated

values

1,000 10 1000, 1010,

1020, 1030, and

so on

1,000 1,020 5 1000, 1005,

1010, 1015,

1020, 1020,

1020, and so on

1,000 10 3 1000, 1000,

1000, 1010,

1010, and so on

924 Supporting On Demand Business Applications with the IBM Problem Determination Tools

Alphanumeric values

For alphanumeric fields, there is a different set of creation attributes (for example, the filler,

the action, the start character, the pattern, and the pattern repetition indicator), as shown in

Figure 29-10.

Figure 29-10 Attributes for alphanumeric fields

Table 29-2 contains samples illustrating how the values of these attributes affect the resulting

values.

Table 29-2 Attributes for alphanumeric fields

Filler Action Pattern Generated values

FX '01' '01' in all records

? '??????' in all records,

filling the field

FX AN 'ABCDEF' for all

records

RP AN Rippling effect

ABCDEF

BCDEFG

CDEFGH

DEFGHI

EFGHIJ

Chapter 29. Test data and File Manager 925

The list of available values for the action field is as follows:

FX The contents of the field are to remain fixed.

RA The contents of the field are to be generated from characters selected

at random from the specified pattern. A different set of characters is

selected for each record.

RO The contents of the field are to be rolled. The pattern you specify is

shifted left one byte for each record until the first non-blank character

of the pattern is in the first byte of the field. Then the pattern is shifted

right one byte for each output record until it returns to its original

position in the field. RO can only be used with a user-supplied pattern,

not with an IBM-supplied pattern. The pattern must start with a blank,

or the result is the same as FX. The roll only occurs within the length

of the pattern.

RP The contents of the field are to be rippled. The pattern you specify is

shifted left one byte for each record and the truncated character is

appended to the right-hand end of the pattern.

SL The contents of the field are to be shifted left for each record. The

pattern you specify is shifted left one character and filled to the right

with a space. When all characters in the pattern have been shifted out,

the original pattern is restored and the process is repeated.

SR The contents of the field are to be shifted right for each record. The

pattern you specify is shifted right one character and filled to the left

with a space. When all characters in the pattern have been shifted out,

the original pattern is restored and the process is repeated.

TL The contents of the field are to be truncated on the left for each record.

The pattern you specify is left truncated (the leftmost character

replaced with a space) one character at a time until all characters in

the pattern have been truncated. Then the original pattern is restored

and the process is repeated.

TR The contents of the field are to be truncated on the right for each

record. The pattern you specify is right truncated (the rightmost

character replaced with a space) one character at a time until all

characters in the pattern have been truncated. Then the original

pattern is restored and the process is repeated.

WV The contents of the field are to be waved. The pattern you specify is

shifted left one byte for each record until the first non-blank character

of the pattern is in the first byte of the field. Then the original pattern is

restored and the process repeated. WV can only be used with a

user-supplied pattern, not with an IBM-supplied pattern. The pattern

must start with a blank, or the result is the same as FX. The roll only

occurs within the length of the pattern.

The list of IBM-supplied patterns is:

AL Alphabetic - characters A–Z, inclusive

AN Alphanumeric - characters A–Z, 0–9 inclusive

CO Collating sequence - all printable characters in the range X'40'–X'F9'