Selecting a Copy Group

Conditional processing can be used to select a copy group; it does not process the copy group.

As described in Using Form Definition Commands, a form definition contains the controls that govern the physical page on which the print file is to be printed. A form definition can contain one or more copy groups as shown in the following diagram.

PPFA Commands Resulting Form Definition
  • FORMDEF FDEFX
  • .
  • .
  • COPYGROUP CGA
  • .
  • .
  • OVERLAY ...
  • SUBGROUP ...
  • .
  • COPYGROUP CGB
  • .
  • .
  • OVERLAY ...
  • SUBGROUP ...
  • COPYGROUP CGC
  • .
  • .
  • OVERLAY ...
  • SUBGROUP ...
  • .
 A resulting form definition

The first copy group within a form definition is always active when processing of a print file begins. To select a different copy group, use the CONDITION command.

Note: By using the BEFORE SUBPAGE and BEFORE LINE parameters with conditional processing, you can change to a different active copy group before any lines have actually been formatted.

Using the previous diagram as a reference, assume copy group CGB is active. The copy-group selections that can be made from a CONDITION command are:

condname
which starts the named copy group
CURRENT
which restarts copy group CGB
=
which restarts copy group CGB (alternate for CURRENT)
NEXT
which starts copy group CGC
FIRST
which starts copy group CGA
NULL
which does not make any change to the current copy group processing
/
which does not make any change to the current copy group processing (alternate for NULL)

See Using the CONDITION Command to Select a Copy Group and a Page Format for more information on each of these options.

Parent topic: Using Conditional Processing to Set Up the Environment