Two techniques
There are two ways to access data values in a DataWindow control:
-
Methods
SetItem and the group of GetItem methods access single values in specific rows and columns. For example:
dw_1.SetItem(1, "empname", "Phillips") ls_name = dw_1.GetItemString(1, "empname")
-
Expressions
DataWindow data expressions use dot notation and can refer to single items, columns, blocks of data, selected data, or the whole DataWindow control. For example:
dw_1.Object.empname[1] = "Phillips" dw_1.Object.Data[1,1] = "Phillips"
Both methods allow you to access data in any buffer and to get original or current values.
Which technique to use
The technique you use depends on how much data you are accessing and whether you know the names of the DataWindow columns when the script is compiled:
|
If you want to access |
Use |
|---|---|
|
A single item |
Either an expression or a method. Both are equally efficient when referring to single items. Exception If you want to use a column's name rather than its number, and the name is not known until runtime, use a method; methods allow you to name the column dynamically. |
|
More than one item, such as:
|
An expression. Specifying the data you want in a single statement is much more efficient than calling the methods repeatedly in a program loop. |
What's in this section
The rest of this section describes how to construct expressions for accessing DataWindow data. The section Syntaxes for DataWindow data expressions provides reference information on the syntaxes for data expressions.
For information on methods
For information about using methods for accessing data, see
