ENTERING DATABASE COMMANDS

SELECTING A FIELD TYPE A field type is selected by first moving to the field type column. Then either type N, D, L, M, or C or press the Spacebar to display different field types. Once displayed, press Enter or an Arrow key to accept the displayed type.

RULES FOR FIELD NAMES Field names can be 10 characters long. Although a field name must begin with an alphabetical letter, it can contain numbers and the underscore character. Following are valid examples of field names:

MIDDLENAME,  SHIP_ TO, VALUE1, PART_NO, SKU    

ENTERING DATABASE COMMANDS

Commands can be entered in either supper or lowercase. The only time you should be concerned about the case of a command is when you are trying to achieve an exact, case-sensitive match for a value within a character field. For example, “Smith” is different than “SMITH”. However, the USE command can also be typed as Use or use. For clarity in this book. Commands and field names maintain a consistent format. Field names are shown with initial capital letters; database commands are capitalized. While consistency is often helpful in distinguishing between commands and field names, you may use whatever suits your personal taste.