Creation password prompt at runtime

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 09:14:47AM -0400, Joe Chasan wrote:
> consider, though, the case where you always know the fp filename, but
> all you want to change at runtime is the qualifier.  that's where it
> really bites me.

WISHLIST: modify the lookup command to take an optional additional
parameter for the target qualifier, for this situation, which isn't all
that uncommon, I suspect.  Don't break the existing syntax of course,
just an additional approach.

> because of the lookup syntax, the filename and qualifier must be stuffed
> into the variable expression, so the way filepro forces you to do this is
> a PITA.  i've seen some systems where there are tons of qualifiers, whether
> for years, customers, companies, etc.  if you want a single process that
> can span qualifiers and you have a creation password, it becomes a real
> pain.  

Yeah, but in *this* circumstance, it's practical to take John's
original suggestions: do a dummy lookup with a fixed qualifier early in
the table, to get the file open.

> i can understand ken's logic for the filepro file name, but i think then
> that lookup syntax should be able to be lookup joe = filename@(var_qual)
> so that changing qualifiers does not fall into same category.

That would be an acceptable alternative syntax, surely, but I still
remain unconvinced that such thinigs are done by the parser, rather
than the individual routines that execute the commands (which makes it
harder to make said syntax universal).

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
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