FOCUS

Duration

4 to 6 hours

Overview

Audience

Those looking to learn FOCUS for the purposes of data and report construction and maintenance.

Prerequisites

Those doing the course should have a good understanding of basic programming and database principles.

Objectives

After completing this course, the student will be able to:
• Use FOCUS to report and manage data
• Use basic FOCUS functions to extract and use data

Course Content

Quick Reporting - The Table Statement

Data structure essentials
Basic report commands
Sorting and displaying data
How FOCUS describes Data
Free format reports

Simple Reporting - Using Table Talk

Choosing report elements
Specifying sort summarization
Selection criteria
Tidying up

Reporting in Depth

Joining data structures
Intermediate HOLD files
Merging files using MATCH
Exporting data to other systems

Updating files using MODIFY/ENTER

Updating concepts
Reading fixed data formats
Display and update Data
Verify data entry
Structure your update program using CASE

Packaging Reports & Applications, Using Dialog Manager

Basic control statements
Using variables
Variable names
Full format of variable names
Supplying values to variables
Compound -IF statements
Combining FOCEXECs
Debugging using ECHO

Database Control

Creating FOCUS databases
FSCAN prefix-area commands
FSCAN command-line commands
FSCAN CHANGE command
FSCAN REPLACE command
FSCAN LOCATE command