EDIT Statements

You may need to allow an interviewer to edit a previously asked TEXT or VARIABLE question. For instance, you may want to review all previous open-ends after the interview is complete and allow the interviewer to clean up the responses. The EDIT statement does this.

The syntax for an EDIT statement is:

!EDIT,question label to edit

EDIT statements are frequently based on a condition statement, meaning the interviewer would only be allowed to edit the specified question if the condition is met.

An EDIT statement may include some message to the interviewer, although it’s not necessary. The interviewer will be placed on the response of the question asked using the full-screen editor (monitors) or line editor (terminals) to edit the question’s response.

NOTE: Use the GRID,EDIT statement to edit GRIDs of questions.

EXAMPLE:

{ XCOMMENTS:
!IF FINISH(2)
!EDIT,COMMENTS }

If question FINISH has a response of 2, the interviewer will be given the opportunity to edit the question COMMENTS.

EXAMPLE:

{ XCOMMENTS:
!IF CHECKTEXT(COMMENTS)>0
!EDIT,COMMENTS }

This IF statement counts the number of characters in the text question COMMENTS. If the number of characters is greater than zero, the COMMENTS question is presented to be edited.

NOTE: See USING FUNCTIONS IN CONDITION STATEMENTS  for more information on the CHECKTEXT function.

With EDIT statements there are a few rules to keep in mind

  • The question that is to be edited must have been previously asked.
  • You may not use an EDIT statement in a GRID block.
  • You may only edit TEXT and VARIABLE questions.
    • However, TEXT questions will only be edited if they have not been skipped.
    • Otherwise, the EDIT statement will not be executed and it will skip to the next question.
  • If you back-reference the question after it has been edited, you will see the edited (not the original) text.
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