ACL: Edit Scripts Easily

As soon as you create an ACL script, you often have to add to it or edit it. There’s an easy way to do it.

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ACL: How to Add a Computed Field

If you’ve been wondering how to add a computed field to an existing ACL table, you’re at the right place. I’ll take you through it step-by-step.

In ACL tip: What is a Computed Field?, I defined computed fields and provided 2 examples. I suggest you read that post before you dive into this one.

That post also explains expressions and functions, which you need to understand when creating computed fields. Both that post and this one are long ones, complete with graphics. You might want to print them both out first…

In this post, I’ll show you how to add the c_Region field that is described in the computed field post. It’s not as hard as it looks.

ACL tip: Quickly View/Print Table Layout

To quickly view or print the table layout in ACL, type dis in the ACL command line (dis is short for display).

The table layout contains information about the fields in a table, such as field names, field type (ASCII, Date, Numeric), field length, and most importantly, the expressions used to create computed fields. For more info on computed fields, see What is a Computed Field?