changing key size

[John Esak]

      I can only say that after seeing all the responses... you could be
well on your way... however, I would do this reconfiguration of files
completely differently than all the suggestions I've seen. However, I would
only do it for lots of $$ per hour... way more than you could afford or
would want to pay.  That is not to say that it is difficult, just that I
don't do this sort of thing anymore. A transformation like this can be done
in lots of way and you get what you pay for.  My suggestion is to hire Laura
to do it... :-)

John

My way is simple... look at the data carefully... look at exactly what you
want when it is all finished .... and then figure out the best way to do it.
:-)  Once this is done... move the data to a fast machine and do it. Then
put the data back on your system.  The whole thing should not take more than
a few hours... and could be less. The only thing required would be at least
one complete backup of the data _before_ any consolidation is done. I'm sure
Laura would see to this.


  -----Original Message-----
  From: filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com
[mailto:filepro-list-bounces at lists.celestial.com]On Behalf Of Dave Andersen
  Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 6:35 PM
  To: filepro-list at seaslug.org
  Subject: changing key size


  Hi, I’m new to filePro.  We have a customer who wants to merge 4 filePro
databases together (identical schemas).  There is a problem with the key
fields though, because each database started at 1.  So we want to prepend a
value to the keys in each table to make them unique.  So record 10000 would
become 110000 at location 1, and at location 2 10000 would become 210000.



  It looks like the first task is to change the schema for each table and
change “5 *” to “7 *” (widen the field).



  At first our customer asked us to write a script to edit the table/Key
file directly.  This seems like a bad idea because the file is not plain
text and I’m pretty sure we would corrupt it.



  So I guess we have two options: 1) figure out filePro processing or 2)
export to csv, process the table with a script, re-import.



  Can you give me some ideas where to start?  I’m confused on how to make a
filePro script that would cycle through all the records.



  Is the $190 filePro book worth it?







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