Masks are character representations of a data value which define each character in the data value. The following mask files are used and located in: C:/Program Files/Trillium Software/MBSW/17/tsq/tables/general_resource.
- maskfile.win/unx. The mask files used for most processes.
- vcnmasks.win/unx. The mask files used by the Window Key Generator process (variations: grvcnmask, trvcnmask).
- ilmasks.win/unx. The mask files used by the Israeli (IL) project.
- rumasks.win/unx. The mask files used by the Russian (RU) project.
- zzmasks.win/unx. The mask files used by the Basic Country (ZZ) project.
The following is the sample default mask values used in the Quality component. See the actual mask files for details.
|
Mask Character |
Default Value |
Character Range Represented |
|---|---|---|
|
ALPHA |
A |
Any letter (a-z, A-Z) |
|
NUMERIC |
N |
Numeral (0-9) or the uppercase letter N |
You may change either of these default mask characters and define additional mask characters for any of the following character ranges by modifying the mask files:
|
Mask Character |
Value |
Character Range Represented |
|---|---|---|
|
VOWEL |
User defined |
Vowel |
|
CONSONANT |
User defined |
Consonant |
|
UPPER-CASE |
User defined |
Uppercase character |
|
LOWER-CASE |
User defined |
Lowercase character |
|
HEX-DIGIT |
User defined |
Hex value |
|
MATH-SYMBOL |
User defined |
Math symbol |
|
CURRENCY-SYMBOL |
User defined |
Currency Symbol |
|
PUNCTUATION |
User defined |
Punctuation |
|
USER-DEF-1~6 |
User defined |
User defined. There are six user-defined mask groups. See User Defined masks. |
|
Explicit |
|
Any data value element that is not mapped to a mask. It is shown exactly as it appears in the data value, including spaces. |
Note that the mask character represents itself literally as well as the characters within the character range. For example, '$' would be a good choice for CURRENCY-SYMBOL because it falls within the character range it represents. However 'D' would not be a good choice for CURRENCY-SYMBOL because it is not within the range of currency symbols.
Similarly, 'N' is used as a default mask value for the NUMERIC character range for backward compatibility with old versions of the product. However this can lead to ambiguous situations because 'N' also represents itself literally. This means a value like "JANE" will have two possible masks "AANA" or "AAAA" while "Jane" will have a mask of "AAAA." You can avoid this ambiguity by editing the mask file and changing the character used to represent NUMERIC to a value within the NUMERIC character range such as '9' (Unicode value U0039).
| Value | Mask Patten |
|---|---|
| JANE SMITH | AANA AAAA or AAAA AAAA |
| 5.00E+02 | N.NNA+NN |
| $400.00 | $NNN.NN |
| 05/31/2005 | NN/NN/NNNN |
| jane_smith@abc.com | AAAA_AAAA@AAA.AAA |
| NULL | NAAA or AAAA |
To edit the mask files