@TABS (format 1) - Define and output hardware tabs

Format 1 of the @TABS statement is used to define tabulator (tab) positions for positioning with the hardware tabulator and output the current values of these positions. The hardware tabulator is only effective in F mode.

The settings for the hardware and software tabulator are stored separately. However, only one of the two tabulator functions can be active at any time. If the hardware tabulator is activated then any software tabulator that may be active is therefore deactivated.

Operation	Operands	F mode, L mode
@TABS	{ [col [,...] ] [ { ON | OFF} ]  | VALUES }

col	Specifies one or more comma-separated tab positions for positioning with the hardware tabulator. The number of possible tab positions is restricted by the length of a statement and possibly also by the hardware. EDT goes to the tab positions in the specified order. If the tab positions are not specified in ascending order then the @TABS statement is not executed and the error message EDT4940 is issued. If the tab positions are defined in such a way that more fields per line would be required for the on-screen display than are permitted at the relevant terminal, then the @TABS statement is rejected with the error message EDT5463 (at 975x terminals, for example, only 64 fields are permitted per line). If col is not specified then the current values of the hardware tabulator's tab positions remain unchanged.
ON	The function of the hardware tabulator is activated (default value). If the current or an earlier statement has defined tab positions then it is possible to specify [TAR] in order to move the cursor to the next defined tab position to the right of its current position. This corresponds to the forward strategy in the evaluation of software tabs. If no tab positions are defined then the @TABS statement is rejected with the error message EDT4941.
OFF	The function of the hardware tabulator is deactivated. The defined tab positions are retained and can be reactivated using @TABS ON.
VALUES	The current tab positions of the hardware tabulator are output. If no tab position is defined then there is no output. The tab positions for output are five digits in length. Up to 11 tab positions can be output per output line. These are then followed by a line break. In interactive mode, the output is written to SYSOUT and in batch mode it is written to SYSLST.

When EDT starts, the hardware tabulator is deactivated.

In EDIT-LONG mode, the hardware tabulator can only be used to go to the tab positions
which have values smaller than the screen width. Tab positions with values greater than the
screen width are ignored.
If the hardware tabulator is active and the @SCALE ON statement has been used in F
mode to activate the column counter display then an additional screen line is displayed in
which the current tab positions are indicated by an 'I'. This is not displayed in EDIT-LONG
mode.
If the hardware tabulator is active then only [EFG] and [AFG] can be used to perform insertions
and deletions within the tabulator positions since the hardware tabulator is implemented
by means of terminal fields.

Example

The values 10,16 and 40 are defined as tab positions for the hardware tabulator.

Entering [TAB] at the terminal moves the cursor to the tab positions 10,16 and 40.