If you are new to Visual LANSA, having separate definitions for fields may seem unnecessary. You could say "table definitions include column definitions".
Having independent field definitions has many advantages for application development. As well as the basic definition such as type, length and description, a Repository field includes many other features, including:
•Label and Column Headings
•Default Value
•Edit Mask
•Input and Output Attributes
•Multilingual Details
•Business Rules and Triggers
•Visualizations
A field definition is a component which is used to:
•Design the user interface
•Serve as a program variable
•Define a table column
•Ensure valid data is accepted whenever the table is updated
•Define the columns in a list visual control.