Main Help → GENerel Commmands → Show Command

Show and ShowAll Commands

The Show and ShowAll commands select some data from the current data and pass it to a new template. The formats are:

Show #1,<#2>,<#3>,<#4>,...

ShowAll #1,<#2>,<#3>,<#4>,...

where

#1 is the name of a GEDCOM tag at the first subordinate level to the current data.
The optional arguments #2, #3, #4, ... are parameters than can be passed to the new template.

The data for the tag specified in #1 will be loaded and will be passed to "#1 Editing" tag editing template. If any optional arguments are provided, they will be passed to the template in the variables #msg=#2, #msg1=#3, #msg2=#4, etc.. In addition, the variable #msgnum will be set to the total number of optional arguments passed to the template.

The difference between Show and ShowAll is as follows. A Show command will call the template exactly once. If there are multiple instances of the tag available, it will be called only for the first one. If there are none, it will still be called, but with empty data. A ShowAll command will call the template once for each instance of the tag in the current data. If there are no such tags, ShowAll will not call the template at all.

The ShowAll command can take special words for #1 to have the following meanings:

all - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each tag in the current data. This command can be used to show the remaining data in a structure and then use the template to add more cells after that data.
INDIEvents - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual event tag in the current data.
INDIAttributes - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual attribute tag in the current data.
INDIOrdinances - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual LDS ordinance tag in the current data.
INDIEvntsAttrs - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual event or attribute tag in the current data.
INDIEvntsOrdns - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual event or oridinance tag in the current data.
INDIAttrsOrdns - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual atribute or oridinance tag in the current data.
INDIEvntsAttrsOrdns - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual event, attribute, or oridinance tag in the current data.
FAMEvents - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each family event tag in the current data.
FAMOrdinances - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each individual LDS ordinance tag in the current data.
FAMEvntsOrdns - execute a Show (Tag_Name) command for each family event or ordinance tag in the current data.

See the GEDitCOM II help documentation for information on individual and family events, attributes, and ordinances. Note that all these option show the data in the order the appear within the record (including intermized events, attributes, and ordinances and those options are used. If these data are sorted by data, the structures will appear in chronological order.

Notes

For example, in a family record editing template, the command
```
Show CHIL
```
will call the "CHIL Editing" template once. If the family has one or more children, it will pass data for the first child to the template. If the family has no children, the template will be called with empty data. In contrast,
```
ShowAll CHIL
```
will call the "CHIL Editing" once for each child in the family. If there are no children, no template will be called.
If the "#1 Editing" tag editing template does not exist, control will be passed to the "_Unknown_ Editing" tag editing template instead.
A ShowAll all command is implicitly included at the end of all templates by GEDitCOM II (unless there is a HideExcess command in the template). You only need to use such a command when you want to return to your template to show additional cells after showing all the data.
Memos in GEDitCOM II are stored in _MEMO lines, but they are not handled like other GEDCOM tags. As a consequence, you cannot access memos with a Show _MEMO command and therefore cannot edit then with a "_MEMO editing template." If you want to display the text of a memo, you can read it with a @_MEMO expression and display the result in various types of cells.