EVENT PROCESSING is often used to set an object value explicitly with an ACTION.

An object defined within an ACTION is called an explicit object.

Unlike regular object values, such as those found under a DATA PROCESSING, explicit objects are not evaluated and updated automatically. Some important properties of explicit objects are provided below:

• an explicit object does not have a value by default, but can be initialized in conjunction with an APPLICATION OPENED event.
• the same explicit object can be set within different ACTION's.
• an explicit object can be a SCALAR or a LIST but not both.
• an explicit object may depend on regular objects. The explicit object value will be evaluated using the value of any regular objects at the time when an ACTION executes. If the regular object changes value later for some reason, for example, due to user input, the explicit object is NOT automatically updated.
• A regular object may depend on an explicit object. If the explicit object value changes due to an ACTION, then the regular object value is automatically updated. If a regular object or expression depends on an explicit object that has not yet had its value set, then the behavior is context-dependent, with various possibilities shown below.