MAIN DOMAINS

Date and Time Sub-domains 

Other Sub-Domains

TERM_STRING DOMAIN

Values of the TERM_STRING domain are string representations of terms. They can thus represent arbitrarily complex values. TERM_STRING values use the nested term-string format (with prefix-letter "z")since the term-string typically is embedded within another term-string. This is always the case for sentences or rules with TERM_STRING domain components when stored in SQL-type databases (since the conclusion- and condition-fields always are stored as term-strings).

A special case of TERM_STRING domain values are term-string values which represent basic terms, where component-values easily can be retrieved and used in e.g. sentence rules with the term string component built-in function.

Example

The TIMESERIES_OF procedure returns a TERM_STRING domain value corresponding to a basic term with 14 components. The standard deviation component is retrieved by the following call (assuming that the variable EarningsSeries represents a time series value):

Sdv=term string component given term string EarningsSeries and component no 7

LIST DOMAINS

There is a list domain corresponding to each of the domains in the table above. Lists follow the general syntax element, element, ... , element and element. (List domain short codes end with the letter l, e.g. nl for number lists. Their KB name ends with underscore l, e.g. pd_nu_l)  

Examples

1. 1, 2 and 3
2. "Peter", "Paul" and "Mary"
3. "Peter, Paul and Mary", "Bob Dylan" and "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young"
4. Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Example 1 is a list of integers, example 2 and 3 are lists of strings, while example 4 is a list of two identifiers (i.e. the Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young).

The ANY-list domain (LIST OF ANY VALUES) can be used to create data element types or simple variables where the list members can be different domains (i.e. any non-list domains).

Example

"Peter", Paul, 123, 3.14 and "2004-12-24"

List domain limitations

• Variables can represent values of a list domain (i.e. an entire list), but variables cannot represent list members.
• There are no list-manipulation operators, e.g. there are nom operators to insert, remove or refer to members of a list.

Pro/3 has a number of built in list functions in lieu of native string manipulation operators.

WORKING WITH DATES

XML_DATE is the recommended date domain, where dates are represented as strings on the format "YYYY-MM-DD". The comparison-operators (<,<=,>,>=,=) can have XML_DATE operands. While you cannot add or subtract XML_DATE values, you can add and subtract DURATION-domain values such as "P14D" (14 days) and "P1Y2M3D" (1 year 2 months 3 days) to an XML_DATE. 

Numerical procedures (in set rules) do generally not work with XML_DATE values (with the exception of the DATE_INTERPOLATION procedure which is made explicitly for XML_DATE). To get around this limitation you will have to work with INTERNAL_DATE values instead (where the date value is represented internally as an integer). You can convert between XML_DATE and INTERNAL_DATE with the two built-in functions xml date of internal date and internal date number, which return an XML_DATE and an INTERNAL_DATE respectively.

There are a number of built-in and standard date functions.

Pro/3 has some flexibility in accepting various date formats in input (see Processing Preferences-window). These preferences also control how INTERNAL_DATE values are displayed in output.