MEMO NN DELETE

[Nancy Palmquist]

I am having trouble convincing Ken that something is wrong.

I wanted to delete all the data in a MEMO field after writing each to a 
ASCII file.

I created a file called: testnote
It had only two fields called: 1  Memo_Number	16,MEMO
				2 text		10

I added a default screen

So using the command MEMO Memo_Number EDIT
I added Memos to the first six records.
I then added a few more records that had no MEMOS attached.

Then I ran the following OUTPUT process:

IF: mod(@rn,"2") eq "0"	'even records numbers
THen: MEMO Memo_Number DELETE;end
IF:
THEN: Memo_Number="";end	'odd record numbers

Now I was told that assigning a null to the Memo field was the same as 
using MEMO NN DELETE.  I will show you that that is not the case.

But the results are not what you might expect.

While each record did have the data in the blob erased and the memo 
could no longer be displayed, the data in the field called Memo_Number 
was not correct.

All the first 6 records that had listed: MEMO************ when they 
validly had memos still displayed the MEMO************* text.

The records that did not have any MEMO and displayed MEMO--------------- 
are a mixed bag.

All the even records still display MEMO--------------
All the odd records display MEMO************* - indicating that a memo 
is allocated to the record.

I am trying to explain to Ken that when the memo is deleted the memo 
field should reflect the missing memo by displaying MEMO------------

I also had issues where the MEMO itself was still available after the 
delete, but with what I just recorded above - none remained.  More 
testing must be done on that case.  My more extensive processing that 
put the MEMO to ASCII must have some other variable.

Since this particular case was tested on Linux I was unable to run a 
fixblob.  None was included in that installation 05.00.13.

In my test of fixblob on Windows, it marked every memo field as if it 
had an attached memo.  MEMO*************
The size of the file was increased also. (22 meg to 32 meg)

Can someone else reproduce these results, explain to me why they should 
be like this, or tell me I am a nut case and should stay away from 
computers entirely, or show me what I am doing wrong?

I would appreciate another opinion.

Nancy

-- 
Nancy Palmquist
Virtual Software Systems
PHONE: (412) 835-9417			Web site:  http://www.vss3.com