Generic Errors

There are 4 errors called generic errors:

These errors have entries in the error database table with error text that is intentionally left blank (these are errors 4400-4403). You should use these errors when you need to report an error where you wish to provide all of the error message text within your code. These were created so that you will no longer need to generate errors with ad-hoc error numbers. You will use this most frequently to report operator and program errors.

For example, let's say you wish to report an error in your program that reports, "You cannot enter negative inventory quantities". In older version of DataFlex, there were two ways to generate this error

Error DfErr_Operator_Error "You cannot enter negative inventory quantities"

Error 300 "You cannot enter negative inventory quantities"

The first method would generate the error "Operator error. You cannot enter negative inventory quantities". However, you wanted to control the entire error text and you do not want to see "Operator error". This is text provided by flexerrs.dat, the error database table.

The second method would generate the error "You cannot enter negative inventory quantities". This is what you want but to do this you've been forced to use an ad-hoc error number (300).

Now you should use the DfErr_Operator. It is a real error, but the text provided from the error database table is blank. Here are some examples of how you might use these errors:

Error DfErr_Operator "You cannot enter negative inventory quantities"

Error DfErr_Program "Bad data passed in MySpecialProcedure. Contact your programmer."