Creating a holecount
Quick reference
To create a holecount, type:
count c(start_col, end_col) [$text$]
text is the holecount title. This is optional; if it is omitted the holecount is headed ‘Holecount’.
More information
The example was created by the statement:
count c(101,116) $Visitor Survey - British Museum (Natural History) ALL VISITORS$
Quantum itself accepts double quotes in the holecount heading, but the C compiler which processes the code that Quantum creates from your specification does not. Generally, it issues an error message that refers to a missing ) symbol at the point the double quote occurs. To prevent this happening, precede the double quote with a backslash. For example:
count c(101,116) $Demo for \"Quantum User's Guide\"$
You can count as many or as few columns as you like, as long as the columns to be counted are consecutive: to count, say, columns 135 to 140 and columns 160 to 180 you will need two statements, one for each field.
Records are counted at the stage they are when the count is read. If you have previously altered any columns, say, with assignment or emit statements, the count refers to the columns as they are after the alterations rather than as they were in the original data file. Similarly, any changes which are effected after the count are not reflected in the output.
Note If you place a count statement in a loop, Quantum sums the counts for all the columns in the statement and reports the total number of codes as the count for the first column only.
See also