No Operation (NOP) structured field

An NOP structured field causes an application to move to the next instruction for processing without taking any other action.

NOP structured fields found inside inline resources are copied to the output resource library. NOP structured fields that are found between inline resources appear in the output AFP document after the Begin Document (BDT) structured fields (see Begin Document (BDT) structured field). NOP structured fields found within the line data or AFP input file are copied to the output file.

When an input file is mixed mode data and the page definition contains CONDITION statements, ACIF does conditional processing where the input records are buffered until the output page format is determined by the CONDITION. Originally, input records with NOP structured fields were not buffered with the other input records, which resulted in the NOP records changing position relative to the other input records. With InfoPrint Manager and RICOH ProcessDirector, NOP records are buffered for CONDITION processing and maintain their position relative to the other input records. Therefore, any application that relies on NOPs appearing in a particular place in the output file might be affected.

Note: The use of an NOP structured field to carry comments or associate semantic data is not recommended because, by definition, the contents of NOP structured fields should be ignored and not processed. For more information, see Mixed Object Document Content Architecture Reference, AFPC-0004.

Parent topic: Structured fields that ACIF uses