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The Form and Menu Language

Type casts

This section defines the type casts that can be used with FMLI.

File type casts

A file type cast is an identifier that indicates to FMLI the type of frame definition file being opened when the file's name does not follow the naming conventions for frame definition files. There are three type casts for frame definition files: MENU, FORM, and TEXT. Each can be used as the first argument to the open command. For example,

   action=open form user.address
identifies user.address as a form definition file. A frame definition file can be identified by using both the file naming convention and a type cast, although only one or the other is required.

Note that file type casts cannot be used to identify the initial frame(s) to open when fmli is invoked.

Type casts that change the time of descriptor evaluation

By default, FMLI determines how often descriptors are evaluated. You can use the const type cast to make sure that a descriptor is evaluated only once, no matter how many times it is referenced, or the vary type cast to make sure that a descriptor is evaluated whenever it is referenced. In either case, the cast must appear immediately after the equal sign (``='') on the descriptor line, as in the following:

show=const `set -l DAY=date +%a; test "$DAY" = "Friday"`

We will explain what this example does, and more generally, why you might want to use const and vary in ``Descriptor evaluation''.


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UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 27 April 2004