Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Internationalizing Applications

Automatic input validation

When you input multi-byte characters, OpenEdge automatically validates the input under certain conditions. Validation of multi-byte characters means OpenEdge checks that the lead byte has a value acceptable for lead bytes in this code page, and that each trail byte has a value acceptable for trail bytes in this code page.

Caution: Passing input validation is no guarantee a multi-byte character is valid. Though its lead byte has an appropriate lead-byte value and each of its trail bytes has an appropriate trail-byte value, the combination of values still might be invalid for the character’s code page.

Table 8–3 describes when validation does and does not occur.

Table 8–3: Automatic validation of multi-byte input 

Data source	Validation
Keyboard	OpenEdge automatically checks that multi-byte characters are valid.
File	OpenEdge does not check that multi-byte characters are valid, because OpenEdge processes the data as bytes.
READKEY, SET, and UPDATE statements	OpenEdge automatically checks that multi-byte characters are valid, whether they came from the keyboard or from a file. OpenEdge does not check that the lead-byte and trail-byte values constitute a valid character.
CHR function	OpenEdge automatically checks that multi-byte characters are valid, whether they came from the keyboard or from a file.