BY NAME clause is used when the variable names and the field names are the same; it implicitly associates variables with the fields that have corresponding names. When 4GL compares the names of the variables with the names of the fields all the prefixes (i.e. record names) are ignored. The INPUT BY NAME statement works correctly, if the names of the variable (and of the corresponding form fields) are unique within the scope of their reference. A runtime error will occur if they are not unique.
Only those fields are active for data entry, which are specified implicitly by the BY NAME clause. If you use the BY NAME clause, you cannot include the FROM clause into your INPUT statement.