About commas in an OptionString

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  tinoruijs Member Posts: 1,226

  2014-12-04

  poppins wrote:

  Hi everyone,
  
  Sometimes in an OptionString we have something like that:

   ,Payment,Invoice,Credit Memo,Finance Charge Memo,Reminder,Refund,,,,,Bank Reverse,Bank Charge,Loan Pay Out,Loan Pay Back
  

  What do those successive commas mean?
  Thanks in advance

  
  It is used for future use. So if in the future someone decides they need an extra option, there's space before "Bank Reverse" in this case.
  It's because an option is an integer. Payment equals 1 because it's after the first comma.
  Invoice equals 2.
  When you would insert a new type before invoice, invoice would now be 3. And this means trouble... Never do that! That's why there are those comma's.

  ---

  Tino Ruijs
  Microsoft Dynamics NAV specialist

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  poppins Member Posts: 647

  2014-12-04

  tinoruijs wrote:

  It is used for future use. So if in the future someone decides they need an extra option, there's space before "Bank Reverse" in this case.
  It's because an option is an integer. Payment equals 1 because it's after the first comma.
  Invoice equals 2.
  When you would insert a new type before invoice, invoice would now be 3. And this means trouble... Never do that! That's why there are those comma's.

  Ah :!:
  Why not just insert the new option in the end of the OptionString, I mean after Loan Pay Back ? Why keep space for this ?

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  Cyberghost Member Posts: 46

  2014-12-04

  Say that the standard Microsoft option was
  
  Quote, Order, Invoice
  
  and you wanted to add Blanket to it. If you have
  
  Quote, Order, Invoice,,,,,,,,,,Blanket
  
  that leaves space for Microsoft to add additional options with you having to do any recoding when they overwrite yours. E.g. if Microsoft added Credit to the list, it would look like
  
  Quote, Order, Invoice, Credit,,,,,,,,,Blanket
  
  Whereas if you had put Blanket in straight after, Blanket would have been overwritten with Credit.
  
  Hope this helps

  "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" - Sherlock Holmes
  
  "God and developers are in a constant battle. Developments to make their applications more idiot-proof, and God to produce bigger idiots!"

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  bbrown Member Posts: 3,268

  2014-12-04

  Because it may be a standard option field to which you have added custom choices. You need to account for the possibility that Microsoft may add choices. So when you merge your choices they remain the same.

  There are no bugs - only undocumented features.

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