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Mask Types

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A mask can consist of several elements. The following element types are available:

#Prompts

A prompt specifier is a single symbol. When a user edits a form field, the edit box displays prompt specifiers with a placeholder character defined by the MaskSettings.PromptChar property.

Character Meaning
A Required alphanumeric character or the space.
a Optional alphanumeric character or the space.
L Required alphabetical character except the space.
l Optional alphabetical character except the space.
C Required any character.
c Optional any character.
0 Required numeric character.
9 Optional numeric character.
# Optional numeric character or the + or - sign, or the space.
> Converts all the characters to the right to uppercase.
< Converts all the characters to the right to lowercase.

#Culture-dependent separators

Standard culture-dependent separators are allowed, such as $ : / , and .

#Ranges

The range mask type allows you to define a range of allowable integer values. To do this, specify the minimum and maximum limits. You can define a range’s default value, allow zero-filling, and control whether a culture-dependent thousands separator is automatically displayed. This mask type also enables you to display mask hints.

Note

You cannot use the # symbol in the range mask type.

<0..100>

<0..50..100> - With default value

<-100..100> - Negative values are allowed

<00..100>, <01..31> - Zero-filling is enabled

<0..9999g> - The thousands separator is added automatically (the current culture specifies the separator character)

#Enumerations

Using this mask type, you can define a collection of allowable string values and specify the default value, if required. This mask type allows you to display mask hints.

<A|B|C>

<A|*B|C> - With default value

Use the MaskSettings.AllowEscapingInEnums property to control whether you can use a backslash symbol () and quotes (single ‘ ‘ and double “ “) as escape characters in enumeration masks to allow the use of special characters inside a mask string.

#Date-time specifiers

Standard and custom date-time specifiers are allowed, such as ‘d’, ‘dd MM yyyy’ and so on.

#Literals

You can use literal symbols within mask expressions to group or separate different mask parts (parentheses in phone numbers or dashes in serial numbers). The following are considered literals:

  • Symbols not specified above

  • A symbol preceded by a backslash ‘\‘

  • A group of symbols wrapped with quotation marks (“$ : / , .”) or apostrophes (‘$ : / , .’)

Use the MaskSettings.IncludeLiterals property to control which kinds of literal symbols should be included in an editor value.

#See Also