Editing a Grammar Item

Pick an existing Element name from the dropdown list or enter your own new name.

To define a simple grammar element

Pick the Basic category.  Enter a Text matching string and specify if the string should exactly Match character case and whether the string is a Regular expression.

For an element that is defined by delimiters

Pick the Delimited category.  Specify starting and ending delimiters, or a starting delimiter and the Stop at end of line option.  Specify if the delimiters should exactly Match character case and whether they are Regular expressions.

An Escape character can be specified that allows the ending delimiter character to be embedded in the element.

For example, the colored literal string in the following code is delimited by apostrophes ('), with backslash (\) as the escape character:

s = 'I can\'t see straight'

To define a list of grammar tokens

Pick the List category and type the tokens into the memo control.  Specify if the tokens should exactly Match character case and whether they are Regular expressions.

To define an element as a column range

Pick the Columns category.  Specify the starting and ending column numbers, or a starting column and the to end of line option.

To match on repeating page headings in your data

When comparing report output, a single change can shift all subsequent page headings, causing many additional differences.  You can define a page heading grammar item in order to ignore these differences.  Pick the Lines category.  Enter a Text matching string that will match the heading at the top of each page in your data.  Typically this would be the Form Feed character.  Mark the or line 1 checkbox if the first page doesn't start with the Form Feed character.  Specify the number of lines in the heading.  Specify if the match string should exactly Match character case and whether the string is a Regular expression.

To define case-sensitivity

Mark the This element is case sensitive checkbox to indicate that changes in character case are important differences during comparison.