An EGL FormGroup part serves
two purposes:
- Defines a collection of text and print forms. (Forms that are unique to
the part are defined within the part or are included by way of a Use declaration.
Forms that are common to several FormGroup parts are included by way of a
Use declaration.)
- Defines zero to many floating areas, as described
in Form part
You do not declare a FormGroup part as if you were declaring a record or
dataItem. Instead, your program accesses a FormGroup part (and the related
forms) only if the following statements apply:
- The location of the FormGroup part is accessible to the program, as described
in References to parts
- A Use declaration in the program references the FormGroup part
A program can include no more than two FormGroup parts; and if two are
specified, one must be a help group. A help group
contains one or more help forms, which are read-only
forms that give information in response to a user keystroke.
Forms are available at run time only if you generate the FormGroup part.
The generated output for Java™ is a class for the FormGroup part and
a class for each Form part. The generated output for a COBOL program is as
follows:
- Text forms are generated into an object module
- Print forms are generated into a printing-services program
At preparation time, each of those entities is processed into a separate
runtime load module. The EGL runtime handles the interaction of your generated
program and the form-specific code.
Form parts cannot be generated separately.