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<title>Formula language</title>

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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Formula language</span></span>

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<p>The <b>Formula language</b> is a <a href="Scripting_language" title="Scripting language">scripting language</a> used by <a href="Lotus_Notes" class="mw-redirect" title="Lotus Notes">Lotus Notes</a>. It is often referred to as <b>@Formula</b> language (pronounced <i>at-formula</i>) because many language elements start with the @-character. Here is an example of a selection formula:

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<pre>SELECT @NoteId = "NT0050D26"

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Development">Development</h2></div>

<p>It was created by <a href="Ray_Ozzie" title="Ray Ozzie">Ray Ozzie</a> during the early development of Lotus Notes. He borrowed the compiler and decompiler from the <a href="Lotus_1-2-3" title="Lotus 1-2-3">Lotus 1-2-3</a> spreadsheet, but unlike the spreadsheet language Formula Language was designed primarily for string and list processing, not numerical processing. It was originally a <a href="Functional_programming" title="Functional programming">Functional programming</a> language with unique text list-handling features inspired by Ray Ozzie's prior use of <a href="Icon_(programming_language)" title="Icon (programming language)">Icon</a> and <a href="Lisp_(programming_language)" title="Lisp (programming language)">Lisp</a>.

</p><p>The Formula language engine was rewritten by Damien Katz for Notes and Domino 6.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> New features were added to the language, such as looping and dynamic execution, and performance was improved.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Structure">Structure</h2></div>

<p>The Formula language has two parts:

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<ul><li><i>@Functions</i> for calculations and simple logic</li>

<li><i>@Commands</i> for performing actions in the user interface</li></ul>

<p><i>@Functions</i> can be used in several places throughout Lotus Notes. The most important uses are:

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<ul><li>to select documents to show to the user in a view (a kind of index) or to select documents for further processing. In this case, the formula will evaluate to a 'true' (selected) or 'false' value (not selected) for each document.</li>

<li>to provide default values for fields, to transform the data entered by the user (like stripping off redundant spaces) and to validate this data.</li>

<li>to get a list of values from a Notes database or even from a relational database (using <a href="ODBC" class="mw-redirect" title="ODBC">ODBC</a>). This may be used to provide a user with a list of values to choose from.</li>

<li>to process a set of documents. The formula is placed in an agent, a program or macro that can be started by a user or by the Notes server according to a schedule. When the agent is triggered, the formula executes for each selected document (this a very limited form of a loop). This is an efficient way to change many documents, if the logic is not too complicated. In case of complicated changes, <a href="LotusScript" title="LotusScript">LotusScript</a> is used.</li></ul>

<p><i>@Commands</i> are like menu commands: they perform actions in the Lotus Notes client. Examples of actions are:

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<ul><li>opening a Notes database</li>

<li>creating an e-mail</li>

<li>putting the cursor in a specific data-entry field</li>

<li>closing a window</li>

<li>starting an agent</li></ul>

<p>@Commands are primarily used in formulas that are triggered by user action, such as in button formulas. It is possible to combine them with @Functions, for example by making execution of an @command conditional on a field value.

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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>

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</style><cite id="CITEREFDamien_Katz2005" class="citation web cs1">Damien Katz (January 4, 2005). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.damienkatz.net/2005/01/formula-engine-rewrite.html">"Formula Engine Rewrite"</a>. <i>Personal blog</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">September 30,</span> 2016</span>.</cite></span>

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<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121022162650/https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ls-formula_enhancements/">"Enhancements to the formula language in Domino 6"</a>. IBM. November 4, 2002. Archived from <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ls-formula_enhancements">the original</a> on October 22, 2012<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">September 30,</span> 2016</span>.</cite></span>

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This article is issued from <a class="external text" title="Last edited on 2024-02-29" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?title=Formula_language&oldid=1211055557">Wikipedia</a>. The text is available under <a class="external text" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0</a> unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

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