Formatting the Data in a Field

This topic describes how you can format the appearance of decimal data types in fields of a table, report, or page. For example, you can change how the data appears in a Cue on the Role Center page. To format data, you use a combination of the AutoFormatType Property, AutoFormatExpr Property, and DecimalPlaces Property of the field. These properties work together to enable you to specify the following:

• Display amounts and unit amounts in another currency.

• Specify the number of decimal places.

• Specify whether to display a thousand separator.

• Specify characters before and after the value, such as currency signs or %.

Implementation Overview

When you use the AutoFormatType and AutoFormatExpr properties to format a field, a trigger called AutoFormatTranslate in codeunit 1 is called. AutoFormatTranslate has ID 12 and takes two parameters: one from the AutoFormatType property and one from the AutoFormatExpr property. The AutoFormatType property can contain one of the following integers: 0, 1, 2, 10, or 11. These settings are described in the next section.

When a field appears on a page or report, you can set the AutoFormatType and AutoFormatExpr properties directly on the page field or report field (column), or you can set them on the underlying table field. If you specify the properties on the table field, then format applies wherever the field is used. Specifying the properties on the page or report field will only apply the format on the specific page or report. If you specify the properties on the table field and the page or report field, then the settings on the page or report field take precedence.

You can see an example implementation of the AutoFormatType logic in the CRONUS International Ltd. demonstration database. In the CRONUS International Ltd. demonstration database, the AutoFormatTranslate trigger calls codeunit 45 AutoFormatManagement which handles the formatting.

Setting up Data Formatting

The settings for the AutoFormatType, AutoFormatExpr, and DecimalPlaces properties will depend on the type of data that is displayed, such as currency amounts and unit amounts or other types of data, such as simple decimals or ratios. For the most part, the AutoFormatType property is the primary setting which determines the options for setting the DecimalPlaces and AutoFormatExpr properties.

The following table describes how to set each of the properties to achieve the format that you want.

AutoFormatType Property	DecimalPlaces Property	AutoFormatExpr Property	Usage Description
0	Set to the number of decimal places that you want to display for the value.	Not applicable. This property is ignored.	Use this configuration when you want to format the decimal value according the Standard Format 0 (which is the default format) with a specific number of decimal places. For example, if the value is a US decimal -76543.21 and you set the DecimalPlaces property to 0, then the value appears as 76,543.
1	Not applicable. This property is ignored.	Set to return a currency code (the blank currency code denotes LCY).	Use this configuration when you want to format the data as an amount. For example, a sales order will use two decimals when the currency is defined as US dollar and 0 decimals when the currency is defined as IDR (Indonesian rupiah).
2	Not applicable. This property is ignored.	Set to return a currency code (the blank currency code denotes LCY).	This is similar to the previous configuration where the AutoFormatType property is set to 1, except you use this configuration when you want to format the data as a unit amount.
10	Not applicable. This property is ignored.	Set to the property according to the following syntax: '[SubType][,<curr>[,<PrefixedText>]]' Where SubType can be 1 or 2, or omitted: - SubType 1: Amount type (see 1 above) - SubType 2: Unit-Amount type (see 2 above) - Any option different from 1 or 2 results in: '<Custom, ' + AutoFormatExpr + '>' For more information, see Standard Formats.	Use SubType 1 to add the currency symbol and use the amount type precision. You must use SubType 2 for unit amount precision. Set the property to '1,USD' to add the $ symbol, for example: $543.21. If you omit the SubType, you can use this configuration to customize the format based on one of the standard formats. This option enables you to specify characters before and after the decimal value, such as currency signs $ and percent %. For example, if you want to prefix the decimal value with a $, include a thousand separator, and have a maximum of two decimal places, such as $76,453.21, then you can set the property to the following '$<precision, 2:2><standard format, 0>' If you want to display the decimal value as a percentage, then you can add % at the end of the setting. For example, '<precision, 1:1><standard format,0>%' When you include a % at the end of the setting, then the decimal value is assumed to be the ratio and the decimal value will be multiplied by 100. For example, a value of 0.98 will be formatted to 98%.
11	Not applicable. This property is ignored.	Set the property to the standard format as explained below. For example: '<Precision,3:3><Standard Format,0>'	Use this option when you want full control over the formatting. The format string will be applied exactly as specified in the AutoFormatExpr property.

Standard Formats

The following table describes the standard formats that are available for the AutoFormatExpr property when the AutoFormatType property is set to 10.

Standard Format	Format Description	Europe Decimal Example	US Decimal Example
0	<Sign><Integer Thousand><Point or Comma><Decimals>	-76.543,21	-76,543.21
1	<Sign><Integer><Point or Comma><Decimals>	-76543,21	-76543.21
2	<Sign><Integer><Point><Decimals>	-76543.21	-76543.21
3	<Integer Thousand><Point or Comma><Decimals><Sign>	76.543,21-	76,543.21-
4	<Integer><Decimals><Point or Comma><Sign>	76543,21-	76543.21-
9	XML format	-76543.21	-76543.21

See Also

AutoFormatType Property
AutoFormatExpr Property
DecimalPlaces Property
Creating and Customizing Cues