Brackets Have Meaning

Regardless of which syntax is chosen, some fundamental concepts to formula creation are important.

A bunch of different brackets are used within the formula language, and it can be confusing which one to use at a particular time. To clear up some of the confusion, here is a way to remember them phonetically:

• {} French = Fields ex{Table.Field} Used to refer to fields, formula fields or parameter fields in the report definition.

• [] Square = Selected ex.{Table.Field}[1] returns only the first character of a string field Square: Used for indexes on array types (for example, strings or array data types).

• () Parenthesis = Parametersex. Function ({Table.Field}) passes the field to the Function Used to define which parts of a calculation or formula should be performed first (that is, defines order of precedence for mathematical and non-mathematical operations).