Scan mode controls the automatic replacement of variables in command lines passed to the editor. Use the SCAN assignment statement either to set the current value of scan mode (for variable substitution), or to retrieve the current value of scan mode and place it in a variable.

When scan mode is on, command lines are scanned for ampersands (&). If an ampersand followed by a nonblank character is found, the characters between the ampersand and the next blank or period are treated as the name of a dialog variable. The value from the variable pool is substituted in the command for the variable name before the command is processed. For example, &DVNAME. and &DVNAME are both interpreted as a dialog variable called DVNAME.

The period after the variable allows concatenation of the variable value without an intervening blank delimiter. Remember this when using program macros that do not have the CLIST processor to substitute variable values.