Validating Your Specifications

You should have QDS validate your specifications file frequently during the course of development. The specifications are automatically validated each time you try to build any QDS product (other than Change History); however, it is good practice to periodically check for errors during development. This allows you to fix problems along the way and avoid the possibility of a large set of errors at the end.

Validating Specifications

1. Select Tools|Validate from the Design Studio Menu.
2. Correct any errors identified by QDS.
3. Repeat steps one and two until all errors have been resolved.

This process will validate your specifications—i.e., it will identify any errors that would prevent building a data collection administration file or any warnings that should be noted but do not prevent building a data collection administration file.

Question numbering, Item IDsItem IDs are available for Skip, Edit, Information, and Section Header Elements. They must be unique and may contain up to 35 characters; certain special characters (i.e., ampersands, backslashes, curly braces, and commas) are disallowed. If an Item ID is not assigned a custom name, the Validate function will automatically assign the ID using the format, <element-type>-<sequence number>., as well as Header, Information, Edit, and Skip Element identifiers are updated during validation. If there are no errors or warnings, QDS will report that "Specifications have been validated. No errors were found."

If validation errors or warnings are found, a new Errors found window automatically opens. Each error or warning is identified on a separate line in the window. For example, the following error messages would be displayed if both Element 7 and Element 8 in the Specifications File had been assigned the same name (GEN).

• Element 7 defines variables GEN which is duplicated in Element 8.
• Element 8 defines variables GEN which is duplicated in Element 7.

Right-click on each error message (keyboard shortcut Shift+F10 or Windows keyboard Context key) to produce an option window with two choices: Explain or Fix.

• Select Explain to open a window with an explanation of the error message. Select Windows X or Alt+F4 to close Explain window
• Select Fix to go to the item that requires correction.

Double-clicking or selecting enter from the keyboard with the error highlighted is the same as selecting Fix; i.e., it will also take you to the item that requires correction.

You will need to correct all validation errors before you will be able to build most QDS products. The only product that can be built from specifications containing validation errors is the Change History.

After correcting any problems, run the validation step again to confirm that all errors have been resolved (and that no new errors have been introduced).