There is an Arezzo Term Checker in the Study Definition module to help you find any potential problems with the Arezzo expressions and conditions that you have written in your study. To see the report on your Arezzo terms, select View > Arezzo Term Report.
When you enter an Arezzo term, for example as a question derivation or validation condition, it will not be accepted if it does not have the correct Arezzo syntax. However, even if the syntax is correct, the term may still not "make sense". It may refer to undefined questions (if you have made a typing error for example), or you may be trying to compare a date/time question with an integer or text question. This is where a semantic check can be useful.
To perform a semantic check on a term you are creating or editing (i.e. to see if it "makes sense"), you can use the Check button in the Arezzo Expression Builder. If you want to check all the Arezzo terms in your study, select the Arezzo Terms Report.
The term checker displays its report in a separate window which offers you the option of selecting different types of Arezzo terms. Only the selected term types will be analysed for the report.
If you change the selection of term types on the left hand side, click the Refresh button to run the term checker again.
The term checker picks out a variety of potential problems. These include
comparisons of incompatible term types, for example comparing a date/time value with a text value
non-numeric questions in arithmetic calculations
non-numeric questions in arithmetic comparisons, such as > or <
non-date/time questions in date functions
unrecognised question, eForm or visit names (see the section on Unrecognised names below)
invalid validation messages (see the section on Validation messages below)
Note that the warnings displayed in the report will not necessarily cause problems in your study, but they may cause unexpected behaviour, and may be the reason why validations or derivations are not working correctly.
You will see a warning if you have used an unquoted text string that is not the name of a question (or eForm or visit, or category code, where appropriate). Text items in Arezzo expressions should always be enclosed in single quotes, otherwise Arezzo assumes it is the name of a question, and will report that it is unrecognised.
For example,
person:trialsite = sydney
will generate an unrecognised name warning (assuming there is no question called sydney), but
person:trialsite = 'sydney'
will not.
Similarly,
visit = Followup
will generate an unrecognised name warning, but
visit = 'Followup'
will not.
Note that if you do not use quotes around text terms, your expressions will probably work correctly, but may not work if you have inadvertently defined a question with the same name! See the Arezzo Syntax section for further details.
You may see several warnings indicating that a question's validation message is not a valid Arezzo expression. You can enter an Arezzo expression as a validation message, or you can enter free text. When the validation is fired in Data Entry, if the validation message can be interpreted as an Arezzo expression it will be evaluated, otherwise it will be displayed as free text.
You can always make free text into a valid Arezzo expression by enclosing the entire text in single quotes, for example:
'This subject may be ineligible for the trial'
The term checker will check all validation messages if the Validation messages check box is ticked, and report those that are not valid Arezzo expressions. If you want to avoid seeing these warnings, either uncheck the Validation messages check box, or make sure your text validation messages are enclosed in single quotes.
Remember that if you want to include a single quote in the text of your message, you must type it as two single quotes, for example
'This person''s pulse is too high'
Note: This Arezzo Term Report performs a different function to a report of the same name in the SDDU module.