Relational Navigation

Relational Jumps Across Files

In interactive VA FileMan mode, you can use the following syntax:

    file:

Doing this changes your context to the file you specify; you "jump" to the specified file. You can then select fields from the file to which you have jumped. You can only do this in four places in VA FileMan:

• "EDIT WHICH FIELD:" prompt (Enter or Edit File Entries option)
  
  
• "SEARCH FOR FIELD:" prompt (Search File Entries option)
  
  
• "SORT BY:" prompt (Print File Entries and Search File Entries option)
  
  
• "PRINT FIELD:" prompt (Print File Entries and Search File Entries option)

Relational jumping is mainly a convenience to make it easier to select more than one field from another file -- by letting you temporarily "jump" to the other file, it's easier to pick all the fields you want directly, rather than having to use extended pointer syntax to specify each field.

NOTE: When sorting, printing, searching, or editing, if you want to reference several fields from another file, it is more efficient to jump to the file and specify the needed fields than it is to use the extended pointer syntax to reference the fields one at a time. Multiple uses of the extended pointer cause multiple relational jumps.

There are three types of relational jumps which correspond to the three extended pointer syntax:

Within the Enter or Edit File Entries option, for example, you can respond to the prompts as depicted in the dialogue that follows:

INPUT TO WHAT FILE: PATIENT
EDIT WHICH FIELD: ALL// NAME 
THEN EDIT FIELD:  ATTENDING PHYSICIAN:  <-- Relational Jump!
EDIT WHICH DOCTOR FIELD: ALL// NAME;"PHYSICIAN NAME"
THEN EDIT DOCTOR FIELD: NICKNAME
THEN EDIT DOCTOR FIELD: 
THEN EDIT FIELD: 

Because of a pointer linkage between the ATTENDING PHYSICIAN field in the PATIENT file and the DOCTOR file, you can use the simple, short form of the extended pointer to navigate to the DOCTOR file. Then, during an interactive editing session you can specify the fields you want to edit for each patient. In this case, after you edit the patient's name, you can edit that patient's physician's name and nickname.