Create a User Defined Attribute

General

Name

Input a valid name for the UDA element in the text box, special characters are not allowed.

Type

Reminder that the Current Element is of type UDA.

Lock

From the drop-down menu, select True to lock the UDA’s attributes.

Owner

The name of the owning element in the dictionary hierarchy.

Description

Input a brief description of the UDA to be created.

Basic definition

Abbreviation length

Specifies the minimum number of characters that the attribute name can be shortened to when used in commands and attribute entry fields. The abbreviation must be less than or equal to the number of characters in 'User Defined Name' (UDNA). The shortened name must still define a unique name for the attribute.

Uda type

From the drop-down menu, select a UDA type. Dependant on the type chosen, other related fields are disabled accordingly. The type options are:

• integer

• real

• text

• logical

• reference

• word

• datetime

• position

• orientation

• direction

• textarray

Uda length

For attributes with a 'UDA Type' of 'Text' or 'Word', this specifies the maximum number of characters that are permitted in the attribute. For attributes with a UDA Type of Position, Direction or Orientation, this must have a value of 1, For other attribute types, including text arrays, this specifies the number of values in an array.

Default Location

Defines the Linked element.

Default Attribute

Attribute of Linked element that provides a default value.

Default Expression

Expression to be evaluated to calculate the value obtained from the default.

Dimension

From the drop-down list, select a UDA Dimension. As well as being able to choose a dimension from the drop-down list, it is possible to input a valid Dabacon Unit of Measure expression and the dimension will be automatically calculated. This allows for dimensions that have not been explicitly named to be used.

Default Unit

For Real UDAs with a Dimension, the Unit they will be presented in if this is not overridden

Element types

The list of element types that the attribute is available on. Up to 100 element types can be set. Input a value directly in the Element types field or click the icon to display the Select element types window which can be used to make a list of Element types.

Referred Types

For reference UDAs, the Element Types that the reference may point to.

Uda default

Allows input of a default value.

Allow duplicates

Flag to indicate if an array can contain duplicate values or not. Applies to Integer, Real or Boolean Arrays, but not TextArrays.

Indexed uda

If set to true this creates an index of the UDA values to enable the efficient retrieval of elements. The index must be set to help performance if an attribute is used extensively for attribute filters in searches, database views or collections. The index must not be set on all attributes as it increases database size and management overheads.

User-defined name

Input a name for the UDA to display in the modules. Special characters are not allowed. Refer to User Defined Attributes for further information.

Engineering cases

A flag that indicates whether the UDA is case variant, that is the UDA can have different values in different case differences. If the flag is not set, the UDA will be case invariant and therefore will only hold one value.

Propagate

Holds a logical value, setting this to true signals that the UDA can propagate to linked elements.

Minimum Uda length

The minimum length of a text UDA. Not used for other types of UDA. In particular, it does not apply to Text Arrays.

Uda Language Variant

Only available if the UDA type value is text. A flag that indicates if the UDA is language variant. It does not apply to Text Arrays.

Presentation

Reporter text

Specifies the name used for the attribute when presented to the user. The name must be set so that the user is presented with a meaningful User defined Attribute Name (UDNA) instead of the colon prefixed attribute name.

Uda category

Input a value to allow the UDA to be grouped together on the attributes form within other modules.

Hidden

Holds a logical value, setting this to true indicates that the UDA is hidden from the Q ATT command and from the attribute form within other modules. Querying of the individual UDA is not affected by this setting.

Hyperlink

Holds a logical value, setting this to true allows the text value of a UDA to contain a path to the external file. Applies to Text Attributes, but is enforced at the Application (not Database / Command Line) level.

Connection

Holds a logical value, setting the value to true signals that the UDA is a connection in the reference list.

Pseudo definition

Pseudo attribute

Indicates whether the attribute is a stored value or whether its value is to be derived by software. If set to true, software must be written to calculate the value of the attribute.

Attribute dependencies

Specifies set of attributes on the currently selected element that the pseudo attribute depends on (when these attributes are modified, the pseudo attribute is recalculated).

Value providing function

Specifies the name of the Programmable Macro Language (PML) function used for value calculation.

Value setting function

Specifies the name of the PML setting function used for value calculation.

Protection

Protected

Holds a logical value, setting to True does not allow the attribute in a protected database to be viewed.

Design

Valid values

Specifies the numeric values, a range of values or text strings. Items must be separated by a suitable delimiter specific to the type.

Misc

Limits or valid values op

The attribute holds an optional flag, setting the attribute to true indicates that the attribute can have a value outside the valid values or range.

List of value usage

This attribute defines if the list of values is to be used as a Single select or a Multiple select value.

Attribute to follow to get UDA valid values filtering element

Defines the attribute to follow to get UDA valid values filtering element.

UDA shared valid value

Defines the UDA shared valid value.