deal a message to be printed on the coupon and various counts recording the activity of the coupon deal validation of a coupon presented for redemption involves first reading a coupon look up number from the coupon this number relates the coupon to a specific coupon deal record which has as one of its data fields a manufacturer 39 s number and a family code if the manufacturer 39 s number and the family code match with similar fields for an item in the customer 39 s order the coupon is valid and an appropriate discount is applied to the order the coupon look up file includes two types of record the coupon index record cir and the coupon deal record cdr both types of record begin with a six byte key in the following format str1 the x field indicates the record type if x 00 the record is a coupon index record and if x 01 the record is a coupon deal record the five byte data field is different for each of the two record types as will be apparent from the following formats the coupon index record format is as follows str2 the item code contains the uniform product code for the product in binary form the sixth byte identifies the record as a coupon index record and the clu provides a link between a triggering product and a particular coupon deal record to allow the purchase of one product to trigger more than one coupon deal a coupon index record may contain up to two additional clu fields and flag fields following the format illustrated above accordingly the purchase of one.