Development > Data and parameters > Tables > Local menus - messages 

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Some database information is displayed in the form of a list with restricted choice. For instance, the Yes / No choice, round codes, report groups, etc., are available in the form of a table holding the limited choices of items available.

This type of data is called a local menu and the table used is identified by a module number. For all the fields in the database storing data of this type, the title row is stored in the corresponding table. Thus, if for instance in local menu number 1, composed of the choices No and Yes (in this order), what is actually sorted in the database is 1 for the value No, and 2 for the value Yes.

A large number of local menus is used in the software. As with all the miscellaneous tables, this system is used to avoid the creation of a large number of annex table, the description of these local menus being stored in a single table in the database : the APLSTD table. These local menus also offer the advantage of being translatable: in effect, as only the title row in the table is stored, it is only necessary to change the table to display or enter with another title translated into the appropriate language.

Warning, it is necessary to take care when modifying these tables, to not insert values but only to add values to the list of titles. Except if no data has yet been assigned to a given local menu, the fact of inserting a choice leads to titles being switched for data that has already been entered, because only the row number has been stored in the table. Thus if the choice Maybe is entered in the first row of the No / Yes table, all the fields in the database having been entered with the value Yes will be redisplayed with the value No, those entered with the value No taking the value Maybe ! The number of choices in a local menu is limited to 255.

Beyond the notion of local menu, some chapters in the table are used to store other messages, such as error messages. As a standard, when a specific message needs to be displayed to the user (for instance, a confirmation request, an error message, a comment in a log file, etc.), the message is stored in a chapter dedicated for that purpose, in order to make these messages translatable based on the connection language.

It is of course recommended to all the developers of specific functions to do do. In order to have easy access to the texts in the processes or in any calculation formula, the standard function mess is available to provide access to the messages. In effect, mess(NUM,CHAP,1) provides access, in the current connection language, to the message number NUM coming from the chapter CHAP.

In any case, each software with the SAGE technology defines its own mapping for the chapters, by allocating number ranges to functional modules of each offer. The mdoule assignemnt specific to the software involved can be found in the annex.