WAIT

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Pauses the current program, displays a message in the results pane of the Command window, and resumes execution when any key is pressed. The keystroke may be stored in a variable.

Syntax

WAIT [<prompt expC>] [TO <memvar>]

<prompt expC>

A character expression that prompts the user for input. If you don't specify <prompt expC>, dBASE Plus displays "Press any key to continue..." when you issue WAIT.

TO <memvar>

Assigns a single character to the memory variable you specify for <memvar> as a character-type variable. If <memvar> doesn't exist, dBASE Plus creates it. If <memvar> does exist, WAIT overwrites it.

Description

Use WAIT to halt program execution temporarily. Pressing any key exits WAIT and resumes program execution. WAIT is usually used during application development to display information and create simple breakpoints. It is usually not used in deployed applications.

In simple test applications, you can also WAIT to get a single key or character. If the user presses Enter without typing any characters, WAIT assigns an empty string ("") to <memvar>.

Note

If SET ESCAPE is ON, pressing Esc at the WAIT prompt causes dBASE Plus to interrupt program execution. If SET ESCAPE is OFF, pressing Esc in response to WAIT causes program execution to resume the same as any other key.