BLANK

Purpose

Fill fields with blanks

Syntax

BLANK [<scope>]

[FIELDS <field list> | LIKE | EXCEPT <skeleton>]

[REINDEX]

[FOR <condition>]

[WHILE <condition>]

See Also

APPEND BLANK, DELETE, DELETED(), EMPTY(), GENERATE, ISBLANK(), PACK, REPLACE, USE, ZAP

Description

The BLANK command is used to fill a field or fields with empty values. This command is often used to empty out records that have been marked for deletion. This allows the record to be re-used without the need to perform an APPEND BLANK. Fields in the current record of the active table will be blanked, unless a <scope> is specified.

The way that the BLANK command fills each field depends on its data type. The following table describes how each data type is filled with blanks.

Data Type	Description
Character	All spaces
Data	Empty date
Logical	.F.
Memo	Length of 0
Numeric	0

FIELDS <expC>

You may specify which fields to fill with blanks with a field list of comma-separated fieldnames, or a pattern matching skeleton to blank those fields whose contents either match (LIKE), or do not match (EXCEPT) the specified pattern. If no fields or patterns are specified, the BLANK command will fill all fields in the current record with empty values.

FOR <condition>

Use a FOR <condition> to blank the specified fields in records where a certain condition is true.

WHILE <condition>

To blank fields until a condition is false, use the WHILE <condition>. Blanking a field that is involved in a WHILE <condition> is not recommended as the order of the records will be changed for each key field blanked.

Example

blank all for deleted()

Products

Recital Server, Recital