Videotex Field Definition

The field definition defines a field on a Videotex screen -- field definitions form one part of a page definition.

There are two types of field:

• input -- where data is input to the Videotex host
• extract -- where data is extracted from the Videotex page to be used in further mapping

Both types of field definition are defined in a text file as a list.

Input Field Definition

Within a page definition an input field is defined as follows:

    (fieldName  row
                column
                width
                action
    )

Extract Field Definition

Within a page definition an extract field is defined as follows:

    (fieldName  row
                column
                width
                action
                depth
                dataType
    )

Field Elements

field name

The name of the field e.g. username, password etc.

row

The starting row of the field on screen.

column

The starting column of the field on screen.

width

The width of the field on screen.

action

optional

For input fields, this defines the value to be evaluated and uploaded to the Videotex service. If this value is omitted, then the value within the mapper's upload table having the same name as the field name is used.

For extract fields, this value is ignored.

depth

optional

The depth (i.e. number of rows on screen) for the field. The default is 1.

dataType

optional

The data type for the field -- values are: string, integer.

If the type is integer, the value is checked to see if it represents an integer before uploading from an input field. For an extract field, when scraping the page, the value is converted to an Integer on extraction.

The default data type is string.

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