( ) (parentheses)

Type

Punctuation Symbol

Purpose

Parentheses are used as separators in selection criteria and function arguments and to clarify the sequence of mathematic operations. The use of parentheses is especially important when combining selection criteria using the and and or operators or when clarifying the order of evaluation of otherwise ambiguous expressions and operations.

Example

for MEMBERS with TOTAL DUE > 75 and

( STATE = "NY" or STATE = "NJ" ) ;

list records

LAST NAME in order ;

TOTAL DUE ;

STATE .

end

With the parentheses placed as shown, this script tells DataEase to list all the members from either New York or New Jersey whose TOTAL DUE is greater than $75 

The report output from this script, arranged alphabetically by LAST NAME, might look as follows:

Without parentheses, this script is ambiguous (it could be interpreted as all New York members whose total due is greater than $75 and all New Jersey members).

In the absence of parentheses, the default order of evaluation is: multiplication and division operations, addition and subtraction operations, comparison operators, and finally, the and and or operators. When operations of equal priority are involved, the expression is evaluated from left to right. When evaluating expressions in nested parentheses, the innermost expressions are evaluated first.