Not all field types require a name. If the Name box is active after you select a field type in the Field dialog, type a name for the field.
Field names can have up to 11 characters and consist of numbers, letters of the alphabet, and underscore ( _ ). However, field names must begin with a letter, and "CR_LF" is not allowed because this is the name of a predefined transaction field.
FORMS assigns an index to the field name automatically. Single fields always receive the index 0.
Fields in a series receive indexes in the order in which they where selected, starting with 1. Therefore, it is advisable to draw series of fields from top to bottom and from left to right.
The number of fields in a series is shown in parentheses on the Standard tab. For example, Index 1(6) indicates the first of six fields.
Unless a field has index 0, you must always refer to it in other FORMS dialogs by its name, with the index in square brackets. Example: FieldA[5].
If a field has 0 as its index, refer to it by its name alone. Example: FieldC.
If you will be using SPSS to analyze the resulting data, limit field names to 8 characters and keep in mind that SPSS does not differentiate between upper- and lowercase field names, as FORMS does.