Changing the Variable’s Attributes

Attributes of a variable can be changed using the Variable Manipulation dialog box. The attributes you can change are:

the variable name (up to 30 letters)

When naming variables using the VDA Tools, be sure to only create valid variable names. A legal variable name has the following characteristics:

Each name must begin with a letter and may contain from one to 31 characters.

The second and following characters may be a letter, digit, the underscore character, or the dollar sign.

A variable name may not contain embedded spaces.

A variable may not have the same name as a function or reserved word. A list of reserved words may be found in the PV‑WAVE Programmer’s Guide.

A variable created with a name that violates these rules will behave in an undefined manner.

the data type (code numbers listed in the table)

the number of dimensions (1 to 8)

the individual dimension sizes

No change to variable attributes takes effect until another cell in the Variable Manipulation dialog box is selected. The attribute change is not registered by the WzImport Tool until the input focus has been shifted to another cell.

To change a variable attribute, do the following:

Click MB1 on the Variables button. The Variable Manipulation dialog box appears.

Click MB1 in any cell in the dialog box to select that cell for changes.

Backspace over the current text or value, and type in the new text or value. The new attribute information is checked for validity when the cell focus is moved to another cell.

Click MB1 in another cell to effect the changes.

Click OK to apply the effected changes and dismiss the dialog box.

The Variable Manipulation dialog box is a blocking dialog box. It must be dismissed in order for you to return to the VDA Tool.You can either enter an integer representing the data type code (see the following table), or enter a string. If you enter a string, the first letter of the string is used to specify the data type. For instance, if you enter “bird” the data type starting with “b”, byte, is selected.
Data Type Code Data Type
0 Undefined
1 Byte
2 Integer
3 Longword Integer
4 Floating Point
5 Double-Precision Floating
6 Complex Floating
7 String