# Edits Description

The edits feature in filePro allow you to easily validate data as it's entered and can be used to format data during importing from other sources and when posting. Because of the power and ease of programming that filePro edits provide, many programmers routinely use filePro to validate data which is downloaded from mainframe computers and other sources.

Edit Classifications

Edits can classified and used in various ways but can be generally classified as follows.

System Edits | These edits that are maintained internally to filePro. This type of edit are primarily date edits such as MDY, MDY/, MDYY/, etc. These edits can be used by all filePro files and cannot be changed.
Global Edits | These edits are maintained in a table in "..\fp\lib\edits" by default or as specified by the PFGLOB environment variable. These edits can be used by all filePro files. User edits can be added to the Global Edits table.
Local Edits | These are user edits (also called file edits) that are file specific and maintained in the applicable filePro directory e.g. "..\filepro\file_name\edits" where file_name is the name of the filePro directory. A local edit will override a global edit with the same name.