Special Characters in SPEC Data

Catalogues and Specifications Reference Manual

Manipulating the Catalogue Database using SPECONMODE : Entering Tabular Data : Special Characters in SPEC Data

In addition to conventional alphanumeric AVEVA E3D™ names and attribute values, the following special characters may be used in the SPEC data entries:

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* The star or asterisk character is used throughout AVEVA E3D™ as an abbreviation which you can set to the name of an owning element when naming a member element in a DB hierarchy. In most modules you must define this character by using the command, but it is set automatically by SPECON so that it always refers to the name of the current SPEC. For example, in the SPEC named /RF300 shown in Figure 11:3.: Part of a typical Specification for piping components, the component listed as */20GA has the full AVEVA E3D™ name /RF300/20GA.

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+ The plus character means ditto; it enables you to repeat the setting above it in the table with the minimum of keystrokes.

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- The minus or dash character, which may be used only in the default line of a table, means ‘not applicable’ or ‘unspecified’. If a default line is present, this character must appear under TYPE and NAME, and under any SELEC questions for which default answers are not set. It must not appear under CATREF, DETAIL, MATXT etc., for which defaults are never allowed.

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= The equals character, when used in the default line of a table, means that the answer will default to the first selector in list order after all other questions have been answered.

As an example, consider the following part of a table (which incorporates all four of the characters * - + and = ):

HEADING
TYPE  NAME  PBOR0  STYP CATREF     DETAIL  MATXT      CMPREF  BLTREF
DEFAULTS
 -     -     -     =
FLAN  */FG  20.0   S    /FSAAPAPP  /20FL   /ASA-20F    =0    /SBOL/20F
FLAN  */FX   +     P       +          +    /ASA-20FX   =0      +
...

This includes two SPCOMs which differ only in the Selector STYP (Subtype) and which have pointers, for the purpose of this example, to different Material Texts. When this SPEC is used to select a component without specifying the required STYP, the = default option will select the first SPCOM (*/FG) in the list order, which points to the MTEXT identified as /ASA-20F.

Note:

The equals signs within the body of the table, in the form =0, simply show that those pointers have not been set. They have no relevance to the equals sign in a default line.

Since AVEVA E3D™ does not allow any SPREF to exist more than once, items in a SPEC which are identical but which need to be distinguished from each other may be allocated suffixes. ISODRAFT can be made to ignore such a suffix by recognising the delimiting character which separates the suffix from the rest of the SPREF. For example, if the delimiting character is defined as a colon (:), which is the default, ISODRAFT will identify two components with the SPREFs /TEE.FS:AA and /TEE.FS:AB as having the same item code /TEE.FS. Refer to Setting Up ISODRAFT for further information, including the way in which you may specify which character is to be recognised as the delimiter.