# System Maintained Fields

System maintained fields are a powerful feature of filePro that allow you to easily access information maintained by the O/S (Operating System) such as current date and time. These fields also include a myriad of filePro functions such as record creation date, date a record was last updated, cursor position on a screen.

Some of the system maintained fields are unique to specific operating systems i.e. "Name of the current user" was not available for Windows but only for UNIX or LINUX operating systems prior to the 5.0.12 release.

System maintained fields can be used on reports and screens just like real fields and dummy fields. The difference between system maintained fields and others is that they cannot be directly manipulated but are controlled by the system or filePro functions. Also, some system maintained fields are not available for all types of processing so check for any usage restrictions in the notes for the system maintained field that you decide to use.